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NEC PC-FX => PC-FX Discussion => Topic started by: SamIAm on August 08, 2015, 10:30:52 PM
Title: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on August 08, 2015, 10:30:52 PM
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32377930/title.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32377930/Luru2.png) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32377930/ingame.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32377930/levelup.png) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32377930/SakuraGou.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32377930/Goingtofight.png) Come and get it!
The file is submitted to romhacking.net, but it's going to take them a while to process it. I'm going to go ahead and give you fine folks here the chance to have it now.
Elmer and I poured a lot of effort into making things look as good as possible. We really hope that it helps you get as much enjoyment out of this game as possible.
Stay tuned for a beautiful manual from esteban, too!
Teaser preview here: https://youtu.be/GnUtZkT7pVM
You may have played or heard about this game briefly in the past and dismissed it as a mediocre shooter packaged with some generic anime. If so, I urge you to give it another shot. When you understand the unique gameplay and can fully appreciate the story, I think you'll realize just what a special game Zeroigar really is.
Let us know what you think of it!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: PunkicCyborg on August 09, 2015, 01:00:05 AM
I can't wait to finally enjoy this game! Thank you guys for all the hard work you put into this. Your time and effort are greatly appreciated!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: herr-g on August 09, 2015, 01:07:36 AM
How great!! Thank you for this and your efforts spent with this project. I highly appreciate it [emoji4]
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on August 09, 2015, 02:20:34 AM
By the way, for those who do try it, be sure to switch the Mode 1 Button to "B" in order to enable auto-fire.
Sure wish I had put that in the README. ](*,)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Duo_R on August 09, 2015, 03:14:28 AM
Great news!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: cabbage on August 09, 2015, 04:56:23 AM
Congratulations :clap: and many thanks to you fine gentlemen for all your hard work. I look forward to playing it in English!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SignOfZeta on August 09, 2015, 07:47:21 AM
Cool!
I'm saving my money for a Tobias version. He shouldn't want more than...$300, right? Considering it comes with a gold plated .22 shell casing and a giant case made out of trash can lids, right?
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esteban on August 09, 2015, 07:51:04 AM
I'm saving my money for a Tobias version. He shouldn't want more than...$300, right? Considering it comes with a gold plated .22 shell casing and a giant case made out of trash can lids, right?
Awesome. I'm saving up my ice cream money.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: jtucci31 on August 09, 2015, 08:13:33 AM
Thanks so much to everyone involved with this! Now with 2 translations for it, I'll feel more inclined to buy a PCFX, especially with one of those being a cool looking shooter.
Well done, it looks great and I can't wait to try it at some point :mrgreen:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 09, 2015, 08:16:25 AM
This is the ONLY shooter for the system, no ?? And congrats on a completed project! :)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: turboswimbz on August 09, 2015, 08:28:50 AM
By the way, for those who do try it, be sure to switch the Mode 1 Button to "B" in order to enable auto-fire.
Sure wish I had put that in the README. ](*,)
Oh 1 more thing. I hadn't had time to mention this to sam and elmer earlier. Using inferiory CD-R's seems to make PC-FX crash during the opening intro movie. (I tried an old cheap one, which was promptly refuted by system. Tried a newer more reasonable disk with no problems)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 09, 2015, 08:33:55 AM
Yeah, use http://www.imgburn.com/ for your CD-R burning needs! I just had helped somebody with Ys IV on my site that burned a CD-R that crashed. I told him to use respectable media and to burn it at the slowest speed with ImgBurn. I believe he used the same media, just that burning it with ImgBurn resulted in a working CD-R copy on real NEC hardware. So yeah, FYI, 1) ImgBurn + 2) Slowest burn speed is best for real hardware and older CD lasers when using CD-R media!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Joe Redifer on August 09, 2015, 09:01:00 AM
Thumbs down for translating a good game instead of an anime porn game!!!!
But honestly the translation of the screen that appears after a level is over would have done wonders for me. I initially had no idea there was a leveling up system going on. If I knew that right away I would have appreciated it more sooner.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: 16bitgium on August 09, 2015, 09:18:10 AM
:dance: :dance: Many thanks!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 09, 2015, 11:24:10 AM
I'm saving my money for a Tobias version. He shouldn't want more than...$300, right? Considering it comes with a gold plated .22 shell casing and a giant case made out of trash can lids, right?
Well, I can make you a one-time, never-to-be-repeated, only-for-the duration-of-this-phone-call, offer of a collectors-edition "lost" (behind the couch) "prototype" CD-R, signed by the programmer's dog's paw, for only $249.99!
That's an authentic bargain! You'd be crazy to pass it up!
Oh 1 more thing. I hadn't had time to mention this to sam and elmer earlier. Using inferiory CD-R's seems to make PC-FX crash during the opening intro movie. (I tried an old cheap one, which was promptly refuted by system. Tried a newer more reasonable disk with no problems)
Zeroigar's video playback code is a bit annoying.
If it gets a read error just as it starts playing back a video, then it locks up to console, and you're screwed.
But if it gets a read error in the middle of a video, it just cancels that video and skips on to the next thing, i.e. loading the next level.
It's definitely a game where you want to have your PC-FX's laser working properly.
I initially had no idea there was a leveling up system going on. If I knew that right away I would have appreciated it more sooner.
Me, too.
It wasn't until I started working on it with SamIAm that I actually had any idea that it was really a good game!
I started just wanting to know what-on-earth the story was ... and have actually ended up really enjoying it as a game.
I absolutely love how the developers went to a lot of effort to "humanize" each of the bosses.
That's not something that I've ever seen done so well in a shoot-em-up.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: xelement5x on August 09, 2015, 03:10:39 PM
Awesome news guys! Thanks a ton for translating and releasing this! It will give my ol PC-FX a new reason to start moving!
I just ripped my own copy to run the patch on but it gave me an error saying track 3 was not the right length? I will try with imgburn instead of Cdrwin but not sure what the problem is :(
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Aggie Tsubi on August 09, 2015, 04:17:39 PM
Whoo-hooooo, congratulations, you guys, and thank you so much for your tireless work! :D This is definitely on my mental to-play list for when I next pull out my PC-FX. Just gotta rip my copy and see if I have any good blank CD-Rs around.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esteban on August 09, 2015, 07:43:57 PM
Whoo-hooooo, congratulations, you guys, and thank you so much for your tireless work! :D This is definitely on my mental to-play list for when I next pull out my PC-FX. Just gotta rip my copy and see if I have any good blank CD-Rs around.
TANGENT:
Forgive me, but I don't remember if you ever wrote about Miraculum PC-FX....
If you have played the game, what did you think of it?
BACK ON TOPIC: When you do play Zeroigar, you have to tell us what you thought of it. I always enjoy reading your posts.
I think it is safe to say that your quality to crap ratio is unparalleled: a few excellent posts every year.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Arkhan on August 09, 2015, 10:19:23 PM
I'm saving my money for a Tobias version. He shouldn't want more than...$300, right? Considering it comes with a gold plated .22 shell casing and a giant case made out of trash can lids, right?
f*ckin loled into infinity.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Necromancer on August 10, 2015, 05:01:17 AM
Congrats on getting 'er done, so quickly too. You guys gonna tackle another PC-FX game now?
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: xelement5x on August 10, 2015, 05:15:07 AM
Ahh, Necro pointed me to TurboRip here: https://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=1604.0
And NightWolve even says:
Quote
It will guarantee the same size of every track file across all CD-ROM devices because it will enforce the PRE/POST-GAP rules for transitions between track types, something even GoldenHawk's CDRWIN program will not do, nor any other professional software of that nature.
I will give it a try ripping again tonight.
If I get the patch applied and working fine would you guys be upset if I made a "pre-patched" ISO link on mediafire or something to share with peeps that ask?
Thank you again!!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 10, 2015, 05:34:18 AM
You have an original, xelement5x ? If you would, try TurboRip logged in with your guest account, it should still be able to read a CD drive even then. Just wanting to see that tested.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: xelement5x on August 10, 2015, 05:39:56 AM
You have an original, xelement5x ? If you would, try TurboRip logged in with your guest account, it should still be able to read a CD drive even then. Just wanting to see that tested.
Guest account, like on Windows?
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 10, 2015, 05:53:48 AM
Yeah, it should be able to work across the board without Administrator Rights and I'm even able to log in my PC with the Guest account and it'll still work.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 10, 2015, 06:38:42 AM
I just ripped my own copy to run the patch on but it gave me an error saying track 3 was not the right length? I will try with imgburn instead of Cdrwin but not sure what the problem is :(
I've not actually tried ripping with Cdrwin for many, many years now. :-k
AFAIK ImgBurn seems to give good .bin/.cue rips to use with the patch, which is why we recommend it in the README file.
TurboRip is a wonderful program ... but it didn't recognize PC-FX cds when I was getting the whole patching sorted out, so I came up with a work-around.
Unfortunately ... I've been too lazy since then (sorry NightWolve!) to actually modify the translation's batch file, yet, to directly use TurboRip's output files when you drop them in the "original-cd" directory.
If you don't want to use ImgBurn, then you can ... [ul][li]Use TurboRip to extract the .iso/.wav/.cue files.[/li][li]Copy them to the "english-cd" directory as ...
[/li][li]Copy "zeroigar.cue" from the "english-patch\cue\" directory.[/li][li]Open up a command window in the "english-patch\" directory.[/li][li]Run "zero-mix.exe"[/li][li]Run "zero-patch.exe"[/li][/ul] That's it ... that's all that the batch file does.
The other "benefit" to doing this is that you can play with all the different command line switches to "zero-mix" and "zero-patch" and see some interesting stuff (use "-h" to get a list of the options). :wink:
Quote
If I get the patch applied and working fine would you guys be upset if I made a "pre-patched" ISO link on mediafire or something to share with peeps that ask?
As long as you're not selling it, that would comply with the licensing terms of the translation patch itself.
You'd still be distributing the original game itself ... which is a copyright issue, and is against MediaFire's policy, and which could get your account there suspended.
But I'm sure that you already know that.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: _joshuaTurbo on August 10, 2015, 07:01:31 AM
Excellent news gents! Congrats on the completion and major props on the hard work that went into this! May it bring many OBEY-FXers much joy!!
:D
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esadajr on August 10, 2015, 07:25:31 AM
Thanks a lot for the hard work. For those of you trying this on Mednafen, use the revision [a] bios. All seems to be well on Win7 x64. As soon as I get a chance I'll try it on a Wii.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: xelement5x on August 10, 2015, 08:08:23 AM
I just ripped my own copy to run the patch on but it gave me an error saying track 3 was not the right length? I will try with imgburn instead of Cdrwin but not sure what the problem is :(
I've not actually tried ripping with Cdrwin for many, many years now. :-k
AFAIK ImgBurn seems to give good .bin/.cue rips to use with the patch, which is why we recommend it in the README file.
TurboRip is a wonderful program ... but it didn't recognize PC-FX cds when I was getting the whole patching sorted out, so I came up with a work-around.
Unfortunately ... I've been too lazy since then (sorry NightWolve!) to actually modify the translation's batch file, yet, to directly use TurboRip's output files when you drop them in the "original-cd" directory.
If you don't want to use ImgBurn, then you can ... [ul][li]Use TurboRip to extract the .iso/.wav/.cue files.[/li][li]Copy them to the "english-cd" directory as ...
[/li][li]Copy "zeroigar.cue" from the "english-patch\cue\" directory.[/li][li]Open up a command window in the "english-patch\" directory.[/li][li]Run "zero-mix.exe"[/li][li]Run "zero-patch.exe"[/li][/ul] That's it ... that's all that the batch file does.
The other "benefit" to doing this is that you can play with all the different command line switches to "zero-mix" and "zero-patch" and see some interesting stuff (use "-h" to get a list of the options). :wink:
Quote
If I get the patch applied and working fine would you guys be upset if I made a "pre-patched" ISO link on mediafire or something to share with peeps that ask?
As long as you're not selling it, that would comply with the licensing terms of the translation patch itself.
You'd still be distributing the original game itself ... which is a copyright issue, and is against MediaFire's policy, and which could get your account there suspended.
But I'm sure that you already know that.
Thanks for the info! When I tried to rip it with IMG burn it would do the analysis on the disc and then just kind of got stuck on track 2. I let it sit there for like 30 minutes but it never finished so I figured it was just hung.
My computer is pretty old but I've normally never run into issues. Oh, and the disc looks immaculate so I don't think it's damaged. I will try messing around with it again later tonight.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: TurboGrafxRetrogaming on August 10, 2015, 08:19:34 AM
Well, I downloaded the Zeroigar .zip to my Mac to burn, realized this Imgburn that everyone is talking about only supports PCs, so I moved the .zip to a PC, downloaded Imgburn and now my browser is hijacked with some Cassiopesa search malware (instead of Google or other search engines)...
I have no idea what this is as I'm a Mac guy, nor what to do -but it's just unfortunate that this is what happens when I try to download something from an unknown source/link that seems safe, to a PC. And since ImgBurn won't open, I have no chance of creating an ISO from the Zip and creating a CD with Zeroigar. Poor.
If anyone knows anything about what I'm talking about, either I can start a new post or please email me at jszkutek@gmail.com.
So sad.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 10, 2015, 09:00:32 AM
Well, I downloaded the Zeroigar .zip to my Mac to burn, realized this Imgburn that everyone is talking about only supports PCs, so I moved the .zip to a PC, downloaded Imgburn and now my browser is hijacked with some Cassiopesa search malware (instead of Google or other search engines)...
I'll be interested to hear how you get on trying to do this on the Mac.
I don't personally know of any Mac-based program that will rip/burn this kind of image, but that's probably because my Mac Pro usually runs Windows.
I take it that you were either ... [ul][li]Unwise enough to download ImgBurn from somewhere other than the official ImgBurn.com website (http://download.imgburn.com/SetupImgBurn_2.5.8.0.exe)[/li][li]Unwise enough to install the crappy adware that it tries to get you to agree to install (which can be disabled with the "Custom Install" option).[/li][/ul] If you installed the adware, you should just be able to uninstall ImgBurn and then uninstall the adware.
Sorry ... but people infesting "free" software with this kind of advertising B.S. if part of the price that PC users pay for getting useful software for "free". You get used to figuring out how to avoid installing the bundled crap.
The ImgBurn guys are reputable ... AFAIK, none of the stuff that they bundle into that installer is actually Malware ... but it is definitely unwanted junk, which is why they allow you to disable installing it.
I'm sorry that it's caused you such a problem, it is so long since I actually installed/updated ImgBurn that I'd forgotten that they'd even started bundling adware with it. :(
It's a good warning, folks ... if you do install ImgBurn, then please don't just blindly click "Yes" on everything!
Look at the dialogs, and when it "recommends" installing some additional adware program, just select "Custom Install (Advanced)" and disable it!
I'll contact you by email and try to help.
[EDIT]
Huh ... I just remembered you from another thread ... :-s
You're a guy that doesn't actually have an original Zerogiar CD, so why-on-earth are you installing ImgBurn???
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: MotherGunner on August 10, 2015, 09:07:37 AM
I have never played this game. I don't own an FX so it might be time to get a hold of one...
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 10, 2015, 09:17:34 AM
Thanks for the info! When I tried to rip it with IMG burn it would do the analysis on the disc and then just kind of got stuck on track 2. I let it sit there for like 30 minutes but it never finished so I figured it was just hung.
My computer is pretty old but I've normally never run into issues. Oh, and the disc looks immaculate so I don't think it's damaged. I will try messing around with it again later tonight.
Ah, hm, yeah, it's probably failing on that [post] gap transition area from track 2 to 3 - that's what TurboRip was designed to handle. That is strange though, normally that's a problem with CDRWIN and other software when trying to rip tracks individually. But yeah, give the new version of TurboRip a shot with your original; I want someone with an original CD to test it out, and if you can, by logging in with your guest account and seeing if you can still rip it.
It's updated more, even more stable now, so download again:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: TurboGrafxRetrogaming on August 10, 2015, 09:31:33 AM
Ah "original Zeroigar CD"! Now these "patches" and .iso files make all the sense in the world. I was like "where is the original game???" - feel so dumb. I need to get an original Zeroigar CD first - I totally understand how all this works now. So sorry and thanks for explaining it to me :mrgreen:
1. I just finished uninstalling all the weird stuff that I blindly installed and fixed that issue.
2. Now I will get a copy of an original Zeroigar CD first before I attempt to burn the translated ISO again, properly.
3. Please disregard my noob posts on this thread. I will now go watch the GameSack PCFX episode, laugh alone in the corner and play more Team Innocent until I figure out this Zeroigar thing ](*,)
Thanks guys! J
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 10, 2015, 09:51:13 AM
Ah, he's right, one of the mirror links from ImgBurn redirects you to Digital Digest and when I downloaded it from there, my free AVG scanned it and popped up a window to save the day claiming it detected "MalSign.OpenCandy.7AF" in the executable...
EDIT: Hm, even the direct link elmer posted results in getting an anti-virus block - OpenCandy.7AF is in the official link. I guess that's just the default crap that I mentioned which it tries to install by default unless you uncheck it... It's the price to pay for free software - somebody else pays the bill, the sponsor, and you, the freeloader, still get to use the software for free. ;)
EDITx2: WAIT, I don't think we can trust this EXE at all - I will try to find an old version on my PC and upload it to my MediaFire account... Stay away from it for now!
Yeah, this warrants clarification to people and to pay attention to the installer which will by default check-on some sponsor's software as a means of monetization... Ah well...
(Even TurboRip, IF it succeeds, opens a link to my site so you get Google ad-spammed... Sorry. :P)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Dicer on August 10, 2015, 10:11:04 AM
Well, shit...Mednafen doesn't want to run on windows 10...
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 10, 2015, 10:31:15 AM
EDIT: Hm, even the direct link elmer posted results in getting an anti-virus block - OpenCandy.7AF is in the official link.
Oh, crap! :(
I guess that we should put some warning in the README to be really careful what you agree to, if you decide to install ImgBurn.
Quote
EDITx2: WAIT, I don't think we can trust this EXE at all - I will try to find an old version on my PC and upload it to my MediaFire account... Stay away from it for now!
I can't find any panic online from people about that ImgBurn download, or about the fact that a competing antivirus provider, Avast, actually ships OpenCandy with their free software.
The only people that seem to be freaking about it are AVG ... who want you to install their antivirus browser plugins instead.
From what I can see, it's not actually malicious, just one of those typical annoyances that should be avoided if possible, and checked with MalwareBytes if you're worried that it didn't fully remove itself when you realize your mistake and uninstall it.
Quote
(Even TurboRip, IF it succeeds, opens a link to my site so you get Google ad-spammed... Sorry. :P)
Hahaha ... and you even force your program to stay as the top window when I'd rather do something else at the same time and bury it under my browser window ... you naughty developer, you! :wink:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 10, 2015, 10:36:18 AM
Well, shit...Mednafen doesn't want to run on windows 10...
Doh! #-o
Another reason to avoid Windows 10 for 6 months, to give if time to finally stabilize and for everyone to "fix" their "broken" software. :roll:
Have you tried the "compatibility" settings (unless Microsoft decided to remove those)?
Yep, tried 8 ans 7 and no dice...
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 10, 2015, 11:02:28 AM
OK, here's a clean install of ImgBurn 2.5.8.0 - it's justifiable as Anti-Virus software will now try to block it and the way it's done tricks people into installing toolbar crap when they don't pay attention. It's a Potential Unwanted Adware block, you can ignore it, but you must pay attention to the installer's default attempt to install the adware!
OK, so my link will unzip to an ImgBurn folder, and simply clicking ImgBurn.exe works - that's the extent of the install, copy it to where you like and add your own shortcuts, that's it!
(Even TurboRip, IF it succeeds, opens a link to my site so you get Google ad-spammed... Sorry. :P)
Hahaha ... and you even force your program to stay as the top window when I'd rather do something else at the same time and bury it under my browser window ... you naughty developer, you! :wink:
I can't find any panic online from people about that ImgBurn download, or about the fact that a competing antivirus provider, Avast, actually ships OpenCandy with their free software.
The only people that seem to be freaking about it are AVG ... who want you to install their antivirus browser plugins instead.
I did find anger on the ImgBurn forums actually when he started doing this. I've been tricked by that style of making it the default setup and not paying attention myself - it's deceptive and they know it!
Not sure what you mean about free AVG, it just detected what's in there (aggressive adware); the panic, I guess, was on my part. It could've better separated the concept between spyware, adware, malware, etc. though, but maybe I jumped to more concern about it than warranted.
As for AVG's browser plugins, they're if you want extra protection to scan links and so forth at the expense of some slowdown to your browser - it's not extra adware... This also lets it scan HTML pages for JavaScript and other exploits, etc. I never really install that though because the Resident Shield aspect catches something after you finish downloading it and I don't want the slowdown - but it is technically a good idea for even further protection!
Now, true, if you're using the free-for-personal-use version (not commercial!), they spam you on rare occasion to buy the full version and will compare all the benefits versus the trimmed-down free one - I get that. So the actual installed executables already advertise the full version if you haven't paid. They didn't need to install browser plugins when you already gave permission to install full executables that can have a lot more power over your computer, etc.
Nonetheless, it's great software, a necessary evil in modern times, and I wish I had it installed way back in 2007 as I caught a real virus from a JavaScript exploit that led to a hidden download of an EXE and immediate execution, then reboot... FreeAVG had that virus in its database at the time and could've protected me - instead, the virus took over my PC at the system level and it then led to a complete HDD disaster (almost lost all of my projects were it not for GetDataBackforNTFS) for me because of my panic on the situation and attempt to rebuild my system as a result... Long story how I almost lost all my legacy... But yeah, I've been using it ever since!
No matter how smart you think you are, you NEED to have anti-virus software installed on your PC. I used to think that was for dumb people who click on I-love-you email and what not... I had no idea just a simple visit to a website by clicking could lead to a quick, *hidden* download of an EXE, execution, and reboot, etc. That's kind of when I stopped using Internet Explorer, but that doesn't mean all other browsers are free of exploits - just means hackers go after the most popular ones until they eventually find a security hole that then needs to get plugged, etc.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 10, 2015, 12:07:30 PM
OK, here's a clean install of ImgBurn 2.5.8.0 - it's justifiable as Anti-Virus software will now try to block it and the way it's done tricks people into installing toolbar crap when they don't pay attention. It's a Potential Unwanted Adware block, you can ignore it, but you must pay attention to the installer's default attempt to install the adware!
It's definitely sad that the ImgBurn now developer feels that he needs to include OpenCandy in order to generate revenue ... presumably because not enough people are donating. :(
I've been using ImgBurn for years, and after thinking about this today, I finally felt shamed enough to donate.
Quote
I did find anger on the ImgBurn forums actually when he started doing this. I've been tricked by that style of making it the default setup and not paying attention myself - it's deceptive and they know it!
Yep, I won't disagree ... it sucks as a tactic.
I've just looked myself, and there do, indeed, seem to be a slow-but-constant stream of complaints on the ImgBurn site, especially now that OpenCandy is getting flagged as a problem.
Quote
Not sure what you mean about free AVG, it just detected what's in there (aggressive adware); the panic, I guess, was on my part. It could've better separated the concept between spyware, adware, malware, etc. though, but maybe I jumped to more concern about it than warranted.
The complaint that I read specifically pointed out that AVG had used exactly the same bundled adware tactic to get their own product onto people's desktops.
What really makes the difference, to me, is that OpenCandy platform can offer up a wide variety of gawd-knows-what different software, and you never know how well they've checked it for malware, or if their servers have been hacked to distribute trojans.
=================
Anyway, back to Zeroigar! :wink:
I'll update the patching process to switch it over to TurboRip, and away from ImgBurn, so that this ceases to be a potential problem in the future.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 10, 2015, 12:21:52 PM
Congrats on getting 'er done, so quickly too. You guys gonna tackle another PC-FX game now?
I have a sneaking suspicion that I know what SamIAm would like to look at next. :wink:
For myself, I'm still more interested in homebrew, and in opening up the PC-FX for new development, than I am in translating old games; but I'll spend a little time looking at Team Innocent to see if there's something that I can do quickly to help Filler and EsperKnight out with the PC-FX-specific knowledge and code that I've accumulated from doing Zeroigar.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 10, 2015, 12:37:15 PM
It's definitely sad that the ImgBurn now developer feels that he needs to include OpenCandy in order to generate revenue ... presumably because not enough people are donating. :(
I've been using ImgBurn for years, and after thinking about this today, I finally felt shamed enough to donate.
Yeah, I'm sure he was experiencing the 99% freeloading rate we all are, those of us that keep count of such things with our freeware-but-please-purty-please-hit-that-Donate-icon... ;)
Quote
I'll update the patching process to switch it over to TurboRip, and away from ImgBurn, so that this ceases to be a potential problem in the future.
Hm, well, I REALLY do recommend it for burning CD-Rs! For those that wanna burn one to play on a real NEC PC-FX, it's one of your best shots... Those of us that downloaded an image and use emulators (and I presume that equals most of us, heh-heh) can just make do with a good CD/DVD emulator to mount the CUE file. Anyhow, I would maybe use a permanent link to something like my Zip file or clearly warn the user it will try by default to install that adware and that your anti-virus software WILL flag it as unwanted, etc.
I guess I have to edit old posts now myself to warn about this adware where I threw the recommendation for it out there... :/
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esadajr on August 11, 2015, 01:18:45 AM
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: xelement5x on August 11, 2015, 04:30:33 AM
So I used TurboRip last night and it extracted everything fine, then manually ran the patches on the ISO and it seems good. I couldn't figure out Mednafan so I need to unbox my PC-FX to try it on legit hardware, hopefully I should have some time soon. Unfortunately NightWolve I don't have a guest account on the machine due to domain policy.
If I can get a solid rip figured out and tested I'm happy to share a link with others.
If the patches complete successfully on the track 2 BIN I am assuming all is fine?
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esadajr on August 11, 2015, 05:00:31 AM
I have a "solid rip" figured out. The final product is a nice Cue+Bin. If someone is interested I'd be happy to help. Also I have Mednafen (Win7 x64) figured out.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Dicer on August 11, 2015, 05:23:31 AM
So I used TurboRip last night and it extracted everything fine, then manually ran the patches on the ISO and it seems good. I couldn't figure out Mednafan so I need to unbox my PC-FX to try it on legit hardware, hopefully I should have some time soon. Unfortunately NightWolve I don't have a guest account on the machine due to domain policy.
Cool! And that was the same computer where ImgBurn would hang on track-mode analysis ?
I think the codebase is pretty solid now and it could probably even run on Windows 95 - I'll probably test the EXE some time on my first PC, a Pentium MMX 200Mhz which I still keep around. Still have a few little tweaks to do though before I attempt a real track analysis with the Q Subcode/subchannel data stuff.
http://perfectrip.cdfreaks.com/ - This app was something I wanted to learn from, especially when I go forward to design a GUI version, but it's broken as shit on my Windows Vista. It gets stuck in an infinite message box error crash about "NTDLL.dll," etc. And when I got to the drive selection screen, it couldn't detect my CD/DVD drives. They have the right idea, but they stopped development long time ago - it's been abandoned.
And how about this, Ryphecha's last Mednafen release addressed a bug for Zeroigar!
http://mednafen.fobby.net/
Quote
PC-FX: Fixed a bug causing a graphical glitch in "Sakuraigar Mode" in "Tyoushin Heiki Zeroigar".
Was that coincidence, elmer ?? Or you asked her to look into it ?? ;)
Well, shit...Mednafen doesn't want to run on windows 10...
Try the MAGIC-ENGINE FX emulator, just to see. I think the "F1 save, F5 load" trick works when your 5 minute timer is about to run out since it's payware - that's a tip David Michel himself mentions to reset the timer and keep playing when in demo-mode.
You need to get the "NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP)[a].7z" one, the other one doesn't work with Mednafen.
After that, it's as simple as running "mednafen zeroigar.cue" from the command line ... or dragging the .cue file onto the mednafen.exe file in Windows Explorer.
Quote
If I can get a solid rip figured out and tested I'm happy to share a link with others.
I just mounted zeroigar.cue with Deamon Tools Lite and then used ImgBurn to rip a .bin/.cue image from the virtual CD.
FYI, the new zeroigar-english.bin that I just ripped is 645,393,504 bytes.
!!!Warning!!! ... If you do install Deamon Tools Lite, it also uses OpenCandy, just like ImgBurn, and so you've got to be careful to deselect the junk adware that it offers you by using the "Custom Install (advanced)" option.
Quote
If the patches complete successfully on the track 2 BIN I am assuming all is fine?
Yep ... both zero-mix and zero-patch do at least some checking on the original file as they patch the other copy of it.
They're just checking for accidental mistakes, not malicious acts, so they can be tricked if you really want to create a non-working CD!
zeroigar02.iso should be 377,487,360 bytes long, with MD5 0f8de09a7067a7edd725631351620b98
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 11, 2015, 06:31:45 AM
And how about this, Ryphecha's last Mednafen release addressed a bug for Zeroigar!
http://mednafen.fobby.net/
Quote
PC-FX: Fixed a bug causing a graphical glitch in "Sakuraigar Mode" in "Tyoushin Heiki Zeroigar".
Was that coincidence, elmer ?? Or you asked her to look into it ?? ;)
No coincidence at all! :wink:
That's the missing "filmstrip" background in the Sakuraigar story slideshows that I reported to Rypheca, and that she kindly diagnosed and identified what the problem was.
Zeroigar is setting one of the background screens to an illegal size that real hardware is correcting, but Mednafen was rejecting and failing to display.
I fixed Zeroigar in the patch to set the proper values, and Rypheca fixed Mednafen to "correct" the value (just like the real hardware does).
That way , the patched game will work on old versions of Mednafen, and the original unpatched game will work on the new version of Mednafen. :)
Quote
Try the MAGIC-ENGINE FX emulator, just to see. I think the "F1 save, F5 load" trick works when your 5 minute timer is about to run out since it's payware - that's a tip David Michel himself mentions to reset the timer and keep playing when in demo-mode.
The problem with that is that Magic-Engine FX doesn't actually emulate the PC-FX accurately enough to play Zeroigar 100% correctly.
Only Mednafen gets all the graphics and sounds correct. :D
I really can't recommend Magic-Engine FX for playing this translation, especially since David is asking you to pay money for it ... and it doesn't fully work, and Mednafen is free ... and it does.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 11, 2015, 07:06:09 AM
That's the missing "filmstrip" background in the Sakuraigar story slideshows that I reported to Rypheca, and that she kindly diagnosed and identified what the problem was.
Zeroigar is setting one of the background screens to an illegal size that real hardware is correcting, but Mednafen was rejecting and failing to display.
I fixed Zeroigar in the patch to set the proper values, and Rypheca fixed Mednafen to "correct" the value (just like the real hardware does).
That way , the patched game will work on old versions of Mednafen, and the original unpatched game with work on the new version of Mednafen. :)
Oh, that's interesting. So there was a more proper way to treat an error and more correctly emulate how real NEC hardware responds to it. Gotcha!
Quote
Quote
Try the MAGIC-ENGINE FX emulator, just to see. I think the "F1 save, F5 load" trick works when your 5 minute timer is about to run out since it's payware - that's a tip David Michel himself mentions to reset the timer and keep playing when in demo-mode.
The problem with that is that Magic-Engine FX doesn't actually emulate the PC-FX accurately enough to play Zeroigar 100% correctly.
Only Mednafen gets all the graphics and sounds correct. :D
I really can't recommend Magic-Engine FX for playing this translation, especially since David is asking you to pay money for it ... and it doesn't fully work, and Mednafen is free ... and it does.
Oh, well, it's what I have/use, but I didn't know it has issues with the game. 1st level looked fine to me when I played it. I guess I'll try to get it running with Mednafen if I can on my PC. But to be honest, I kinda hate command-line software and never liked Mednafen being the non-GUI oddball emulator! Hahaha! I know, I made TurboRip, but it's just cause it was easier to let Windows provide you with a DOS-emulated window than designing and controlling your own window/GUI. ;)
I don't have a problem with someone deciding on payware though, but as Dicer can't get Mednafen to work at all, it's the only other alternative emulator I know of and he might as well try it. And yeah, there's a bypass to Michel's 5 minute timer in demo mode that he himself revealed in his forums so you can play all games fully without buying it.
He's a good guy, he helped me when I started working on TurboRip and fan translations with hardware/coding info and so forth. He has been harassed/heckled by people (as I have myself) with the free-for-me entitlement complex that believe they deserve such software for free, so I kind of sympathize.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 11, 2015, 08:22:37 AM
No coincidence at all! Only Mednafen gets all the graphics and sounds correct. :D
I really can't recommend Magic-Engine FX for playing this translation, especially since David is asking you to pay money for it ... and it doesn't fully work, and Mednafen is free ... and it does.
Oh, well, it's what I have/use, but I didn't know it has issues with the game. 1st level looked fine to me when I played it. I guess I'll try to get it running with Mednafen if I can on my PC. But to be honest, I kinda hate command-line software and never liked Mednafen being the non-GUI oddball emulator!
You can just drag a .cue file onto mednafen.exe in Windows Explorer ... not the friendliest of interfaces, but it avoids the command line. :wink:
Quote
[I don't have a problem with someone deciding on payware though, but as Dicer can't get Mednafen to work at all, it's the only other alternative emulator I know of and he might as well try it. And yeah, there's a bypass to Michel's 5 minute timer in demo mode that he himself revealed in his forums so you can play all games fully without buying it.
He's a good guy, he helped me when I started working on TurboRip and fan translations with hardware/coding info and so forth. He has been harassed/heckled by people (as I have myself) with the free-for-me entitlement complex that believe they deserve such software for free, so I kind of sympathize.
The really, really, hard work done by David Michel, David Shadoff, Charles MacDonald, and a few other pioneers are how we can all get to enjoy the PCE/PC-FX emulators, translations and homebrew that are available today! :pray:
It probably wouldn't ever have been done without them.
David Michel's generosity in providing the algorithms for his PC-FX's FMV emulation to Rypheca for use in Mednafen was incredible (you can see the credit to him in Rypheca's source code). :D
I have absolutely no problem with David, or any other developer, asking for money as compensation for all their hard work.
The only problem that I have with Magic Engine FX, is that he stopped developing it years ago, even though there are some significant problems in it's emulation.
It's like he's (quite understandably) just lost interest in the PC-FX platform.
Anyway, I'll try to update my Mednafen patches to the latest 0.9.38.5 release of Mednafen today and make a new build, then perhaps Dicer can try that and see if it works on his Windows 10.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esadajr on August 11, 2015, 09:13:14 AM
I'm surprised no one mentioned MedGUI, the Mednafen frontend. At least for Zeroigar it gets the job done.
The whole emulator enchilada (x64) https://goo.gl/F9G6NE
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 11, 2015, 10:21:48 AM
Anyway, I'll try to update my Mednafen patches to the latest 0.9.38.5 release of Mednafen today and make a new build, then perhaps Dicer can try that and see if it works on his Windows 10.
OK Dicer, if you want to give Mednafen another try, I've uploaded a new build of my modified Mednafen and put the links in the original development thread ...
I'm surprised no one mentioned MedGUI, the Mednafen frontend. At least for Zeroigar it gets the job done.
Hahaha ... I'm a crusty enough old curmudgeon to object to the idea that a simple front end takes over 8MB of files, plus the entire .NET framework in order to work! :shock:
But I guess that it's a good recommendation for those people who are more interested in actually running games, rather than in complaining about modern software development practices. :wink:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Aggie Tsubi on August 11, 2015, 12:07:21 PM
Forgive me, but I don't remember if you ever wrote about Miraculum PC-FX....
If you have played the game, what did you think of it?
BACK ON TOPIC: When you do play Zeroigar, you have to tell us what you thought of it. I always enjoy reading your posts.
I think it is safe to say that your quality to crap ratio is unparalleled: a few excellent posts every year.
Thanks for the very kind words! You know, I'm such a lazy ass that I bought Miraculum nearly two years ago and it's still sitting at the bottom of a pile of unplayed games, whoops. Boy, it would suck if it ended up not working, haha. It's definitely on my to-play-soon list along with patched Zeroigar. :) And then they'll transition to the to-ramble-on-about list, haha.
I actually have played Zeroigar some before (in Japanese), but not extensively. Like others, the level-up system went completely over my head (kanji are my mortal enemies). Really liked what I've played so far, both in terms of gameplay and the cool retro-for-even-back-then cutscenes. It's gonna be awesome to understand every bit of it with the patch.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esadajr on August 12, 2015, 03:08:26 AM
I finally got a chance to play/test this last night on a Wii. While it doesn't run like a dream, I say it is playable and looks awesome via component on the CRT. The slow down is more notorious during the video playback and even there it doesn't sound that bad. The music is a bit slow, but the controls are fine even when the screen accelerates.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Necromancer on August 12, 2015, 03:12:16 AM
The problem with that is that Magic-Engine FX doesn't actually emulate the PC-FX accurately enough to play Zeroigar 100% correctly.
Unless it's since been fixed, MEFX wouldn't let me play the two minute score thingy back when we had a high score challenge thread going here. Selecting it from the title screen just got me a blank screen.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on August 12, 2015, 03:40:25 AM
The chief problem with MEFX is that it doesn't emulate any of the rotation effects properly. That means the second boss, the fourth boss, and the stage six mid-boss aren't drawn as they should be, and you will literally be taking hits and not be able to see what it hitting you. It's only playable if you're a maniac like me who has completely memorized the boss patterns already.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Black Tiger on August 12, 2015, 04:52:38 AM
This project motivated me to finally get a PC-FX again. I don't know how much free time I'll have to play the game, but I'll try it out as soon as my new system arrives.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 12, 2015, 10:18:37 AM
I've been using ImgBurn for years, and after thinking about this today, I finally felt shamed enough to donate.
Ya know what, I said f--k it, and just donated as well! He's a great coder and I've been using it for years since switching over from Ahead Nero that I got for free when I bought a new budget DVD drive at MicroCenter. Nero is interesting, has lots of features, and it helped keep TurboRip working on Windows Vista/7/8 with their Nero ASPI DLL layer till I finally released the updated 1.40 version with this project which uses the native Microsoft SPTI layer instead (like ImgBurn!), but anyway, I grew to like the ease of ImgBurn and I feel I've always had successful burns with it.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: filler on August 12, 2015, 02:29:22 PM
Forgive me, but I don't remember if you ever wrote about Miraculum PC-FX....
If you have played the game, what did you think of it?
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I played it a bit a number of months ago. At first it seems like a very traditional RPG in both good and bad ways. What stands out about it are the FMV scenes (of course) which I really like how they act as cut scenes in what is otherwise much like an RPG from the Super Nintendo. Additionally there is some shocking violence, and just a bit of humor and personality. I was enjoying it when I stopped playing. I'd like to get back to it.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esteban on August 12, 2015, 02:36:46 PM
Forgive me, but I don't remember if you ever wrote about Miraculum PC-FX....
If you have played the game, what did you think of it?
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I played it a bit a number of months ago. At first it seems like a very traditional RPG in both good and bad ways. What stands out about it are the FMV scenes (of course) which I really like how they act as cut scenes in what is otherwise much like an RPG from the Super Nintendo. Additionally there is some shocking violence, and just a bit of humor and personality. I was enjoying it when I stopped playing. I'd like to get back to it.
Thank you :)
Every bit of feedback helps.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 14, 2015, 05:25:41 AM
This project motivated me to finally get a PC-FX again. I don't know how much free time I'll have to play the game, but I'll try it out as soon as my new system arrives.
I hope that you enjoy it!
You'll be one of the select few to appreciate the old technique that I used to anti-alias the soft-subtitles on the Sakuraigar Mode level name screens (the regular Anime Mode level name soft-subs were trivial to do, since they're always on black).
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: herb on August 15, 2015, 06:25:56 PM
Burning a copy now,super excited. Thanks a bunch for doing this dude!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: EvilEvoIX on August 15, 2015, 06:40:28 PM
Cant wait to play!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SkyeWelse on August 17, 2015, 07:47:15 AM
Awesome! Looking forward to playing this when I can either get a PC-FX or a PC-FX GA for my 98 machine. Thank you for working on it. It looks great!
-Thomas
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on August 18, 2015, 01:49:10 AM
I'm grateful for the publicity, but...
Quote
The PC-FX is not known for its scrolling capabilities. Hell, the console was built from the ground up to be a full motion video (FMV) console, it has limited hardware as far as actually producing anything outside of FMV games. NEC set it up like this on purpose, check out titles like Battle Heat or Team Innocent- this thing was not meant for fast moving objects, quick input from the gamer or anything related to either of those things.
For more proof of this check out the gameplay video of Choshin Heiki Zeroigar in action. See that jerky movement in the background? It is not all that bad but it can be hard on the eyes and could produce headaches in certain people. Definitely play at your own risk here. For those wanting something smoother may I suggest the 194X series?
...sigh.
FYI, the scrolling is smooth 60FPS. The "jerky" scrolling in my youtube preview video is the result of youtube itself converting it to 30FPS. The PC-FX can scroll just fine. ](*,)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: MrBroadway on August 18, 2015, 01:59:01 AM
People who don't actually own a product should not be writing magazine articles about them.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Necromancer on August 18, 2015, 03:25:36 AM
Standard bearded fatass hipster gamer with knowledge limited to whatever he can cut and paste from wikipedia or glean from a youtube video. [-(
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 18, 2015, 04:32:24 AM
Oh, dear! What idiot wrote that? Where did it come from?
It might be a good idea to put a link to the the RomHacking project page on that YouTube video so that anyone who finds the video can download the patch.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Necromancer on August 18, 2015, 04:43:13 AM
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 18, 2015, 02:35:52 PM
Hahaha, I wrote a comment on the Retro Gaming article's page, and Carl Williams was kind enough to post a reply and then actually edit the article to remove the bit about Zeroigar having jerky scrolling.
He left all the other misinformation intact; but I don't suspect that it would do any good to start an argument with him about it. ](*,)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Aggie Tsubi on August 20, 2015, 04:13:14 PM
*shakes my head*
Well, it wouldn't be the PC-FX without gamers, even journalists, commenting on it and its games without having any actual firsthand experience.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 20, 2015, 04:22:47 PM
Well, it wouldn't be the PC-FX without gamers, even journalists, commenting on it and its games without having any actual firsthand experience.
He has literally just signed up for a new account here, in order to do the research for writing an article about the PC-FX, and is currently waiting for Administrator Approval.
We'll all get the chance to very politely make our case, and hopefully educate him about the machine and show him what is good about it.
Kudos to him for coming here and being willing to learn! :wink:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 20, 2015, 05:07:21 PM
I actually just patched Zeroigar a few moments ago and also helped Aaron patch it as well. :)
Yeah, there certainly is an art to designing a patching system. My first patches for Ys I & II Complete were batch files and were the most feedback-prone because of it. My first job after I earned my CS Bachelors was mostly making InstallShield installers for VB6 software actually, but when I started fan translation work I no longer had licensed InstallShield 5.5 software so I went back to batch style... Eventually I learned about NSIS and that's when I got back to doing what I was good at, too good - I noticed that you get less interaction from the fanbase because they won't get stuck with Windows patchers - they're dummy proof. With the ole .cab batch file system, they got stuck all the time on things like copy files x to y which led to emails/help requests/etc. Heh-heh.
Anyway, I'll have to download the latest Mednafen and get all set up with it when I have a chance.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: RGMag on August 21, 2015, 03:46:23 PM
Hi guys, I am the standard bearded idiot fatass hipster bastard gamer that wrote the article about Zeroigar that apparently ruffled a few feathers here. First, true, I don't own the hardware or the game but I do write articles about stuff I find interesting, whether I own the hardware or not.
True, I gleaned a lot of information on the game from a Youtube video (the one linked in the article) and did do more than a little bit of Googling (actually, I use Bing for the rewards and the results are usually better suited when it is gaming related). This is how I figure someone would learn about new things and would be considered research for the article.
I am not meaning to come off as a jerk up there, words are very bad at relaying sarcasm, grins and pokes of fun.
I had another account here, "triverse" but the e-mail it is linked to (my former company's e-mail of "cwilliams@scenic7pr.com" is no longer valid and I can't retrieve the password). Elmer has been an immense help in getting that fixed but I think it is still outside of my reach, hence the new account here.
Please, by all means, let me know what else is wrong in the article. I am not above learning and editing work that I have put forth when it is wrong (as evidenced by changing the only thing mentioned in the comments on that article). As I mentioned over on RGM, we as a team are only interested in putting forth the correct information and if we are wrong, let us know and it will be fixed.
Elmer mentioned that I am interested in learning more about the PC-FX for a future article. That is true. In our second issue of our print/PDF magazine (links available on RGM's site for those interested) we did a rather lengthy article on the Sharp X68000. That article is one of the most memorable and most brought up pieces we have done so far (granted we have not released another issue in over a year but that is due to lack of available staff).
Prior to Youtube and Wikipedia, I was of the persuasion that there were only Burning Heat and a few other titles ever released for the PC-FX. Why? Because that is all Gamefan covered back in the day (Gamefan was my main source of gaming news back in the day). Until I saw Zeroigar I had never heard of it, nor knew there were shmups on the system. I wrote the article more out of excitement for the "discovery" and not with the intent of making the console look bad/worse than it already appears to most gamers.
By the way, if anyone here is willing to put words behind original articles on the PC-FX, I am willing to pay them to do it on RGM. We are hiring and I would much rather have people that are passionate about the systems they are writing about than people like me that are looking in from the outside.
I will politely wait over here for the tar and feathers to arrive. Please warm the tar up to an optimal temperature prior to applying.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE! - FileBySize app
Post by: NightWolve on August 21, 2015, 04:21:48 PM
OK, first suggestion I have to help with the Zeroigar patching process, John, but totally up to you if you wanna use it.
Download: http://www.ysutopia.net/software/FileBySize.zip - For Win95/98/NT/2K/XP/V/7/8/10/etc.
Synopsis: When I saw the batch patch system that BurntLasagna imported from the guy who originally started the Dracula X project, it was using complex batch syntax with the FOR loop that only works for NT/2K/XP and forward to find a file by its size, and not its name! So, I decided to make a quick command-line app called FileBySize that takes a few parameters, a wildcard and a size, and then prints the name of the file that matches it. Simple. Newer 9X version also takes a /set parameter to produce a ready-to-go SET batch command. Replacing the syntax with my app allowed the batch file to work on Win9X/ME, but more than that, which is what's relevant here, is not having to hard-code a filename standard for the image file set.
After Aaron used TurboRip which named the files by the long full name, I had to have him rename them to what you have there. So, instead of that extra grunt work, here's how you could replace hardcoded names using my little FileBySize app in your batch file:
Quote from: Win9X/ME Basic Version, works
@echo off cls echo Zeroigar Find-Files-by-Size test begin! echo Designed to work as early as Win9X/ME!! echo.
IF EXIST "%TRACK01%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK01% IF EXIST "%TRACK02%" echo Found Track 2 ISO name: %TRACK02% IF EXIST "%TRACK03%" echo Found Track 3 WAV name: %TRACK03% IF EXIST "%TRACK04%" echo Found Track 4 WAV name: %TRACK04% IF EXIST "%TRACK05%" echo Found Track 5 WAV name: %TRACK05%
del out.bat echo. echo TEST COMPLETE! pause
Shorter version, but less compatibility:
Quote from: Fancy WinNT/2K/XP/Vista/7/8/10 version
@echo off cls echo Zeroigar Find-Files-by-Size test begin! echo (This batch language won't work for Win9X/ME, only NT/2K/XP/Vista/7/8/10++!) echo.
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 4132508 /s' ) DO SET TRACK01=%%I FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.iso 365950976 /s' ) DO SET TRACK02=%%I FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 29990396 /s' ) DO SET TRACK03=%%I FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 47277596 /s' ) DO SET TRACK04=%%I FOR /F "tokens=*" %%I IN ( 'FileBySize *.wav 130472540 /s' ) DO SET TRACK05=%%I
IF EXIST "%TRACK01%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK01% IF EXIST "%TRACK02%" echo Found Track 2 ISO name: %TRACK02% IF EXIST "%TRACK03%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK03% IF EXIST "%TRACK04%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK04% IF EXIST "%TRACK05%" echo Found Track 1 WAV name: %TRACK05%
echo. echo TEST COMPLETE! pause
And that's it. It was tested on Windows 98, 2000 via emulation and my native Windows Vista desktop. Long file names with or without spaces work no problem. The EXIST test will need double quotes when there are spaces, so that's why they're there!
Anyway, yeah, up to you if you wanna use it, or for next time, etc.! I wanted to share this old app so this gave me a chance to promote it regardless if you feel like updating that aspect of your batch file.
EDIT: Fixed the NT script, needed the "tokens=*" flag in the FOR loop after all, otherwise it only worked on Win2000, but not on my Vista. With the "tokens=*" flag, it works on both which is technically the right thing to do, use that flag so it returns all strings and doesn't separate by space characters! I also removed the double quotes in the SET command for those FOR loops so it matches the other version and the EXIST test uses them only. FYI.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on August 21, 2015, 05:49:22 PM
Hi guys, I am the standard bearded idiot fatass hipster bastard gamer that wrote the article about Zeroigar that apparently ruffled a few feathers here. First, true, I don't own the hardware or the game but I do write articles about stuff I find interesting, whether I own the hardware or not.
True, I gleaned a lot of information on the game from a Youtube video (the one linked in the article) and did do more than a little bit of Googling (actually, I use Bing for the rewards and the results are usually better suited when it is gaming related). This is how I figure someone would learn about new things and would be considered research for the article.
I am not meaning to come off as a jerk up there, words are very bad at relaying sarcasm, grins and pokes of fun.
I had another account here, "triverse" but the e-mail it is linked to (my former company's e-mail of "cwilliams@scenic7pr.com" is no longer valid and I can't retrieve the password). Elmer has been an immense help in getting that fixed but I think it is still outside of my reach, hence the new account here.
Please, by all means, let me know what else is wrong in the article. I am not above learning and editing work that I have put forth when it is wrong (as evidenced by changing the only thing mentioned in the comments on that article). As I mentioned over on RGM, we as a team are only interested in putting forth the correct information and if we are wrong, let us know and it will be fixed.
Elmer mentioned that I am interested in learning more about the PC-FX for a future article. That is true. In our second issue of our print/PDF magazine (links available on RGM's site for those interested) we did a rather lengthy article on the Sharp X68000. That article is one of the most memorable and most brought up pieces we have done so far (granted we have not released another issue in over a year but that is due to lack of available staff).
Prior to Youtube and Wikipedia, I was of the persuasion that there were only Burning Heat and a few other titles ever released for the PC-FX. Why? Because that is all Gamefan covered back in the day (Gamefan was my main source of gaming news back in the day). Until I saw Zeroigar I had never heard of it, nor knew there were shmups on the system. I wrote the article more out of excitement for the "discovery" and not with the intent of making the console look bad/worse than it already appears to most gamers.
By the way, if anyone here is willing to put words behind original articles on the PC-FX, I am willing to pay them to do it on RGM. We are hiring and I would much rather have people that are passionate about the systems they are writing about than people like me that are looking in from the outside.
I will politely wait over here for the tar and feathers to arrive. Please warm the tar up to an optimal temperature prior to applying.
Greetings, and welcome to the forums.
While I am sure that you can understand the frustration of coming across inaccurate information regarding something you love, I can assure you that people here don't really have any ill will toward you. Your interest in getting the story straight is what really matters, and as you are demonstrating that, I think you'll find the tone around here will change.
Now let me introduce myself. I am the guy who did the Japanese-English translating for Zeroigar. Call me Sam.
I've not been a PCE fan for as many years as a lot of the folks around here. However, living in Japan and speaking/reading Japanese has made it very easy for me to absorb a lot of system and its history quickly. I bought a PC-FX a few years ago, and uncovering the story behind it has been fascinating. I see it as the closing chapter of the entire PC Engine story. In fact, if you were to write a long feature about it, the first thing I would urge you to do is start all the way back in 1987 and thoroughly build up the story to its release. In short, what happened after the PC-FX came out is nowhere near as interesting as what happened before it came out.
If you want help, I can help you. I've spent lots of time reading Japanese magazine articles from the period, and I would dare say that I have a better grasp on what was happening from the Japanese perspective than just about anyone else you'll find in the English speaking world.
As a matter of fact, I have actually thought about writing up a feature to tell the story of the PC-FX myself. I even started drafting one, although meeting elmer back in March and getting Zeroigar out the door with him made me shelve it. If you wanted me to take on the work of producing a major feature, I would probably start over.
Writing about the PC-FX would be fun. Doing as thorough a job as possible would be time consuming and would incur a few costs. Were it to happen, a little compensation would be appreciated. I'm not the best writer in the world, nor do I have journalism experience, but I do think I could handle it.
So tell me, how many words are you imagining a feature about the system being? I can very easily imagine something in the 10,000 range. Feel free to PM me if you prefer to discuss details privately.
Thank you!
PS - About your article: 1. It's "Chojin" not "Choshin". Don't worry, everyone gets that wrong. 2. "this thing was not meant for fast moving objects, quick input from the gamer or anything related to either of those things." This just isn't true. Elmer can tell you more about it, but it is in fact easily capable of more than any of the 16-bit consoles. It has the same graphics processor as the PC Engine. In fact, it has two of them. There's no weird input delay, either.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 21, 2015, 07:02:29 PM
I will politely wait over here for the tar and feathers to arrive. Please warm the tar up to an optimal temperature prior to applying.
Definitely no tar-and-feathers from me ... I've only recently begun seriously looking at the PC-FX myself.
There's a lot of misinformation out there in the interwebs ... this is a good place to get some reasoned discussion from people that actually own PC-FX consoles and can put its legacy into perspective.
2. "this thing was not meant for fast moving objects, quick input from the gamer or anything related to either of those things." This just isn't true. Elmer can tell you more about it, but it is in fact easily capable of more than any of the 16-bit consoles. It has the same graphics processor as the PC Engine. In fact, it has two of them. There's no weird input delay, either.
The more that I look at the Sharp X68000, the more that I can see the similarities between it's design, and the design of the PC-FX.
The PC-FX's "King" chip looks, to me, to be the next-generation version of the chip that Hudson designed for the X68000's "text" and "graphics" layers.
The PC-FX's "King" chip is capable of displaying 4 256-color scrolling bitmapped backgrounds (or 2 65536 color backgrounds) ... twice the capabiltity of the legendary "God Machine".
That doesn't even take into account the 2 VDC chips (the same ones in the PC Engine), that add another 2 16-color layers and 128 sprites.
The machine is a 2D power-house. Well in advance of the PlayStation ... but lagging behind the Saturn.
If you add on the PC-FXGA's 3D chip, which was designed to be released as an "add-on" for the PC-FX console, then you rival, or arguably surpass, the Saturn.
IMHO, it wasn't the machine's hardware that let this console down ... it was economics and opportunity.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: RGMag on August 22, 2015, 03:44:14 AM
No worries, my original post in this thread was more of a joke about the comments made previously- a poor attempt to let you guys know that I read the thread before posting rather than "blindly" posting a response here.
SamIAm, I am fine with discussing this bit here in the public (the rest may need to be discussed in another thread so as to not derail this one too much). I pay $1.50 per thousand views on articles for the website. Articles need to be at least 300 words long (this is so Google will properly catalog it for their users) and need to be linked to "retro" gaming somehow to be published on RGM (I am working on launching a more universal site later this year). Pay is monthly for the previous month via Paypal (we can work out arrangements for other payment if need be). Word limits on the site are pretty high, just that minimum to worry about. We have an article in proofreading right now that is being combed through that is over 15,000 words covering "hentai" and other "mature" themes in games from both sides of the pond. Just takes time since I am really the only one doing the proofreading (and writing the bulk of the content)- I have to pick and choose my battles so to speak.
We published two issues of our print magazine (the site was started to simply promote that, hence the "magazine" in the URL). We stopped after two issues because of lack of staff to write intriguing articles. I paid out $20 per page for articles that were published (there were word limits on everything printed though as pages are not cheap). Sales were also quite low and I was unable to recoup expenses, while the free PDF's have been downloaded nearly 50,000 times so far across many distribution methods (most popular is Google Play)- free doesn't bring in cash. Ads were not sold at a high enough rate to cover expenses involved either (no one wants to advertise a retro project and the ones that do just do it through Google Adsense).
If we ever relaunch the print mag I would love to have a several page feature on the PC-FX but it would probably be too limited in space to start in the late 80's and move through it's complete history properly. Something like that would probably be better for the website where word limits are quite high (we haven't said stop yet on an article).
Reviews, TOp 10's, editorials and opinion pieces would be a good way to earn more than a few bucks and help spread the word about the PC-FX in quick fashion.
What other games on the PC-FX are like Chojin? I mean, open my eyes guys. I am still under the impression that there are less than 10 games for this thing - like a launch and it didn't sell well so no one released any more games for it- type opinion.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 22, 2015, 05:56:27 AM
What other games on the PC-FX are like Chojin? I mean, open my eyes guys. I am still under the impression that there are less than 10 games for this thing - like a launch and it didn't sell well so no one released any more games for it- type opinion.
I've PM'd you some introductory info.
When you've read up on that, it would be a nice idea to start your own thread where we can talk about the PC-FX.
Let's try to keep this one for Zeroigar! :wink:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 22, 2015, 09:29:10 AM
OK, first suggestion I have to help with the Zeroigar patching process, John, but totally up to you if you wanna use it.
Hahaha ... thanks NightWolve ... I'll look at this properly when I've gotten over the "Friday" feeling! :wink:
I definitely need to handle TurboRIP's output properly!
Cool!
[Feedback #2]
OK, here's another area to update where Aaron and I got stuck: In using Mednafen. In the ReadMe, all you have is this section:
Quote
2) PLAYING THE GAME ON AN EMULATOR
This game only works 100% properly in Mednafen.
ME-FX has graphical problems that severely inhibit gameplay.
Running this game in Mednafen is as simple as dragging and dropping the zeroigar.cue file onto mednafen.exe.
Alternatively, you can launch it via the command line, or even set up a custom .bat file.
Problem: There are 2 PCFX BIOS files out there... One works, one doesn't - Mednafen almost boots, but all you're left with is a black window and that's it! Turns out the BIOS file I had with the MagicFX emulator was the one Mednafen rejects... So neither I nor Aaron could get it up and running with Mednafen at first... But then I remembered reading about 2 BIOS files somewhere, maybe that was you, but only in this thread ? I can't remember, but anyhow, so I googled around for the other one. I came across a gametronik site that lists 2 links:
1) NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP) 2) NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP)[a]
I tried the first one, but turns out that was once again the bad BIOS that Mednafen crashes on. I tried the 2nd one, and hooyah, the game worked!!!!!!
* Alright so based on that experience and hours wasted with Aaron with both of us getting stuck, him with bad burns as well until he finally got a good one, I would say add something to the Mednafen ReadMe section to look for the "NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP)[a]" BIOS file in particular to avoid this trap which cost Aaron and me some good time - we almost gave up...
* It also would be worth it to PM Ryphecha to use the CRC32 of the BIOS Mednafen works with and reject any other BIOS file instead of being left with a black window doing nothing, etc.
* The other thing I had to learn was what to name the BIOS file proper to get it loaded by looking at the stderr.txt output file. I thought it was enough to copy the file to the firmware folder, but Mednafen wants it named "pcfx.rom" so that's another instruction to add to the ReadMe. It can be in the same folder as mednafen.exe or in a firmware folder if mednafen already created it.
Aaron had bad CD-R batches, so first couple of burns failed to work on his real PC-FX, so we tried emulators... Turns out he even had a pre-2008 MagicEngineFX emulator which couldn't load his CD drive - I assumed he had the latest since the last version was 2008, but even there we lost time and he couldn't get any burn loaded anywhere, even Mednafen, etc.
So yeah, there go some pitfalls that can be avoided. Something needs to be mentioned about the BIOS file, and maybe tell Ryphecha about this as well to update the emulator to provide an error message somewhere, in the stderr.txt file or the window to get the proper BIOS file, etc.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 22, 2015, 12:59:03 PM
OK, first suggestion I have to help with the Zeroigar patching process, John, but totally up to you if you wanna use it.
Thanks for the detailed feedback, I really appreciate your input! :D
Quote
Replacing the syntax with my app allowed the batch file to work on Win9X/ME, but more than that, which is what's relevant here, is not having to hard-code a filename standard for the image file set.
Hahaha ... I have absolutely no interest in having the patch support Win98/WinME! :shock:
Windows XP is supported ... and even Microsoft gave up on that operating system a year ago.
But it would be sensible of me to make sure that the patch doesn't actually try to run and fail on Windows 98.
I'll just rename "english_patch.bat" to "english_patch.cmd" to signify that it uses that newer NT "cmd" file syntax, and so make sure that Windows 98 won't run it.
Good catch! :)
Quote
After Aaron used TurboRip which named the files by the long full name, I had to have him rename them to what you have there.
Errr ... so the real problem is that you didn't use the "supported" method of ripping a .bin/.cue image??? :-k
The patching process already doesn't care what the name of the .bin or .cue file are ... when it extracts the individual tracks, it gives them the specific names that you then see me test for.
Anyway ... the complaint was good, because I decided to get off my lazy ass and properly support TurboRip's individual .wav/.iso files. :wink:
Quote
So, instead of that extra grunt work, here's how you could replace hardcoded names using my little FileBySize app in your batch file
Thanks, but since I'm only supporting Windows XP or above, it's really easy to do it in the batch file without needing a separate program ...
for %%i in (original-cd\*.wav) do call :identify_file "%%i" for %%i in (original-cd\*.iso) do call :identify_file "%%i"
if not defined SRC_TRACK1_FILE goto :no_original if not defined SRC_TRACK2_FILE goto :no_original if not defined SRC_TRACK3_FILE goto :no_original if not defined SRC_TRACK4_FILE goto :no_original if not defined SRC_TRACK5_FILE goto :no_original
if %~z1 equ 4132508 set SRC_TRACK1_FILE=%~1 if %~z1 equ 365950976 set SRC_TRACK2_FILE=%~1 if %~z1 equ 29990396 set SRC_TRACK3_FILE=%~1 if %~z1 equ 47277596 set SRC_TRACK4_FILE=%~1 if %~z1 equ 130472540 set SRC_TRACK5_FILE=%~1
exit /b 0
That scheme keeps compatibility with the previous method of doing things.
But then I remembered reading about 2 BIOS files somewhere, maybe that was you, but only in this thread ? I can't remember, but anyhow, so I googled around for the other one.
Yep, I mentioned the BIOS problem on page 4 of this thread ...
Hahaha ... I have absolutely no interest in having the patch support Win98/WinME! :shock:
Windows XP is supported ... and even Microsoft gave up on that operating system a year ago.
But it would be sensible of me to make sure that the patch doesn't actually try to run and fail on Windows 98.
Yeah, I understand. I personally like to code things in such a way where even the oldest MS OS still works. We had somebody here recently bragging that they're still using Win98 too, and sometimes it is nice to know how something could be minimally coded as a script or an executable so that it behaves pretty much the same in Win95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP/V/7/8/10/etc. It's just kind of cool in my book if it can be accomplished. :) I'm aware of MS's official "bye-bye" to XP status, but yeah.
Definitely the new FOR loop tricks in NT are cool, but I personally would try to see if there was another way to accomplish the same end result that still worked on the 9X core if possible.
Quote
I'll just rename "english_patch.bat" to "english_patch.cmd" to signify that it uses that newer NT "cmd" file syntax, and so make sure that Windows 98 won't run it.
Ah, I was gonna mention that, that is the more proper thing to do, as it is technically gonna be using NT upgraded batch syntax, the .cmd extension is the better choice to reflect that just in case somebody did download it on an Win9X core OS.
Very good call about the BIOS info. In fact, that was something I had wanted to put in there, but just forgot about. Shoot. ](*,)
Hope we didn't lose too many people over that one.
Yeah, that was a bummer, mednafen looking like it's about to start, then just giving a black window without any kind of info as to what the problem was, neither as an onscreen message or in the stderr.txt that it writes which is how I learned to name the BIOS properly to "pcfx.rom". Good thing elmer had said something somewhere that I partly remembered, but I still had to rediscover it albeit a bit of the hard way. ;)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on August 23, 2015, 01:05:42 AM
A little photo memento before I throw these in the trash. This is how many versions of Zeroigar I had to burn just with elmer in the last five months in order to test the game as we developed the translation. In 2012, I probably burned another couple dozen while doing testing with Esperknight.
Anyway, I did get the readme updated. It's just waiting for romhacking.net to approve the change. Thanks again, Nightwolve!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: NightWolve on August 23, 2015, 07:17:56 AM
Errr ... so the real problem is that you didn't use the "supported" method of ripping a .bin/.cue image??? :-k
Honestly, I figured the script (without having looked at it) already dynamically fetched the filename based on size, I just kinda figured you had already done that because of your request to get me to add the PC-FX TOCs to TurboRip and give it much-needed upgrading, not just cause you seem to be a very advanced coder. I was under the impression you wanted to be able to work with its output.
So with Aaron having used TurboRip first, I figured it'd be easy to have it skip forward to the ISO/WAV/CUE phase even if you didn't start with a BIN/CUE. I found I just had to delete the early lines in the script related to BIN/CUE conversion to ISO/WAV/CUE and simply have him rename the files to match your script, which got it patched. No biggie.
Quote
Yep, I mentioned the BIOS problem on page 4 of this thread ...
You're right, it's probably something that should be in the patch's README file.
Ah crap, so that is what I saw, and you even emphasized the same 2 7z files I found and mentioned renaming it to pcfx.rom to suit Mednafen's preferences... I didn't retain enough memory of that post. At least it got me thinking that I read something about 2 BIOS files, so it led me to the solution even though I used Google and didn't come here first... :/ Well, I went to the ReadMe first to see what was said about Mednafen, and it just said it works 100% like you were saying about it compared to Michel's PC-FX emulator. So initially I figured Mednafen didn't like my Windows Vista or video drivers, something, etc.
An aside, speaking of MagicEngineFX, it seems Michel pulled another fake BIOS system card deal like he did for MagicEngine... I hate that... His fake Magic System Card 3 never worked properly with Ys IV, it'd cause sound bugs, and I always had to keep telling people don't use his Magic System Card choices or certain games won't work properly... He literally introduced bugs to games by attempting to code his own system cards on the basis of "escaping" copyright issues and not solely relying on the real BIOS ROMs for CD games which is B.S., the whole thing is technically illegal anyway, all the way and is why I would host the real ones on my site (http://www.ysutopia.net/software/SYSCARDS.rar)...
But yeah, it looks like MagicEngineFX will not load the real BIOS, it didn't do anything whether or not I had it in the same folder. It's nice that it runs without one from the get-go, but I wonder if he's introduced bugs to Zeroigar and other games because that's what it does by default. In other words, all that time I had the BIOS file in the same folder with the EXE, it was never using it, it's booting with his fake (and likely unfinished and buggy like the PCE ones) version...
What other games on the PC-FX are like Chojin? I mean, open my eyes guys. I am still under the impression that there are less than 10 games for this thing - like a launch and it didn't sell well so no one released any more games for it- type opinion.
There are none. It's the sole SHMUP on the system.
It would probably do you some good to look over information on this forum and the PC-FX World portion of the site to get some general information. As far as I know, the system was supported for a little over 3 years. (Again, as far as I know) there were 62 games released for it. I have copies of all that I know of. Most of my experience is first hand, I may not be as knowledgeable as some people here.
One of the biggest revelations for me was the discussion we had here about the meaning of the elements of the name, PC = PC98, F = Future, X = 未知数 (unknown number). I talk about this and some general things about collecting for the system in this video: https://youtu.be/doK5LKB6550
I mistakenly state that it's a "consolized" version of the PC98, which is incorrect. What I meant is that it's probably best thought of as a home console successor to the PC98. I discuss implications of this further in the video. Suffice to say, I feel that the system has a lot of PC style games on it, especially ones representative of Japanese PC gaming of the time. It was also developed around the time of the release of FM Town's actual consolized PC system, the FM Towns Marty.
It was also marketed heavily towards Japanese anime fans with a mascot character (Rolfee) and games based on popular anime series, not to mention the "Anime Freak" series of digital magazines that had a serialized OAV series, and lots of text and video content.
I can also contribute some video reviews for you to watch for what they are worth. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8C1A4296459A2D6F
By way of introduction, I'm the (language) translator of what I think was the first completed translation project on the system, Welcome to Pia Carrot. I'm also currently working on Team Innocent which elmer recently volunteered some amazing work on, as well as some other games on the system like Ojousama Sousamou, and Ah! Megami-sama.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: 16bitgium on August 24, 2015, 09:32:16 AM
Just burned this to disc and finished the main game. Pretty fun! Thnaks for you guys hard and beautifull work.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on August 24, 2015, 04:46:59 PM
Just burned this to disc and finished the main game. Pretty fun! Thnaks for you guys hard and beautifull work.
Congratulations! :)
Finishing the main game should have unlocked the Sakuraigar Mode for you; I'm curious to hear what you think of that. :wink:
We're up to 570 downloads on RomHacking.net ... which sounds pretty good to me for a game that's on the PC-FX instead of the SNES.
I wonder if we'll get any new "converts" joining here? :-k
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Pcenginefx on August 25, 2015, 04:20:33 AM
Thank you so much for your hard work on completing this project! With NightWolve's help, I was able to finally burn a CD-R to play in my FX. I've always loved the FX, but found it unfortunate that I could never fully enjoy the games due to not understanding Japanese.
On a side note, I plan on live streaming English Zeroigar on my newly formed Twitch channel whenever I get a few hours to spare :D http://www.twitch.tv/pcenginefx/profile/past_broadcasts
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: _joshuaTurbo on August 25, 2015, 05:01:53 AM
Thank you so much for your hard work on completing this project! With NightWolve's help, I was able to finally burn a CD-R to play in my FX. I've always loved the FX, but found it unfortunate that I could never fully enjoy the games due to not understanding Japanese.
On a side note, I plan on live streaming English Zeroigar on my newly formed Twitch channel whenever I get a few hours to spare :D http://www.twitch.tv/pcenginefx/profile/past_broadcasts
Good to know! I'll keep my eyes peeled and gave you a "follow".. :)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: filler on August 25, 2015, 03:41:56 PM
Thank you so much for your hard work on completing this project! With NightWolve's help, I was able to finally burn a CD-R to play in my FX. I've always loved the FX, but found it unfortunate that I could never fully enjoy the games due to not understanding Japanese.
On a side note, I plan on live streaming English Zeroigar on my newly formed Twitch channel whenever I get a few hours to spare :D http://www.twitch.tv/pcenginefx/profile/past_broadcasts
Did you ever get around to checking out Pia Carrot? :wink:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Dicer on August 26, 2015, 09:45:56 AM
I had put this on the backburner for a while, got the latest mednafen the proper bios (I was using an older one apparently) and after fiddling with gui and controller I am playing this...
Most excellent work :)
I only wish mednafen had some better options for scaling and smoothing and stuff, it's looking a bit chunky unless I scale it down...
I really need to land a PCFX one day...one day :(
Title: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esteban on August 26, 2015, 10:34:40 AM
Not trying to spam, but since some folks won't be reading the "development" thread....
Share a pic of you LightScribe or slap a label on a CD-ROM. :)
Those are beautiful! Thank you! :D
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on September 02, 2015, 02:25:23 AM
The timing is right to share a couple more youtube videos with you all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATWu0FgTLko
This is the first four stages of the translated game. That leaves three for you to uncover for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duLT4IukI-w
...and this is a preview of the unlockable Sakuraigar Mode. You'll find that the music, enemies, and of course the story have all been changed dramatically. It's quite a trip.
Enjoy!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Arkhan on September 02, 2015, 09:19:40 AM
My PC-FX died. It caint even discs anymore. lol
God damnf*ckingf*ck.
Need to get on that.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on September 02, 2015, 11:10:33 AM
Now would be the perfect time to get that PC-FXGA working! :wink:
I'll be interested to hear if you try SamIAm's "pot-twist" fix ... I've still not done that on mine, yet.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: TailChao on September 02, 2015, 11:46:23 AM
With all these failing lasers, have any of you tried to get the FX to boot off a modified BMP cartridge? Some of the documentation out there indicates code can be run off these, might be a good long term solution.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on September 02, 2015, 12:12:45 PM
With all these failing lasers, have any of you tried to get the FX to boot off a modified BMP cartridge? Some of the documentation out there indicates code can be run off these, might be a good long term solution.
I certainly haven't ... since the PC-FXGA doesn't have a slot for the BMP cartridge, you'd need a working CD boot on the PC-FX in order to actually write a program to the BMP.
What I've started to wonder is whether we could just replace the CD mechanism with a SCSI drive, probably a CF-SCSI or an SD-SCSI. The PC-FX chips definitely seem to talk to the CD mechanism in SCSI format.
Here's the open-hardware/open-source SCSI2SD project ... http://imall.itead.cc/scsi2sd.html
If the correct signals come out of the PC-FX motherboard somewhere, then you'd just need to replace the SCSI2SD firmware with CD-emulation instead of HDD-emulation.
I guess that if it could work on the PC-FX, then it could possibly also work on the PCE.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: TailChao on September 02, 2015, 12:34:19 PM
I certainly haven't ... since the PC-FXGA doesn't have a slot for the BMP cartridge, you'd need a working CD boot on the PC-FX in order to actually write a program to the BMP.
What I've started to wonder is whether we could just replace the CD mechanism with a SCSI drive, probably a CF-SCSI or an SD-SCSI. The PC-FX chips definitely seem to talk to the CD mechanism in SCSI format.
Here's the open-hardware/open-source SCSI2SD project ... http://imall.itead.cc/scsi2sd.html
If the correct signals come out of the PC-FX motherboard somewhere, then you'd just need to replace the SCSI2SD firmware with CD-emulation instead of HDD-emulation.
I guess that if it could work on the PC-FX, then it could possibly also work on the PCE.
I was thinking more along the lines of a new distribution medium, just in the BMP form factor.
As for replacing the CD-ROM drive with a SCSI emulator, it depends on whether or not the PC-FX has custom commands. I'll have to look at the Mednafen source. The PCE's CD-ROM certainly does, but they're documented. The drive itself is identical to some of NEC's SCSI CD-ROMs with different software on the controller chips anyway.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Djangoo2 on September 02, 2015, 12:42:00 PM
I think it would be cool to see something like the GDEmu on the PC-FX.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Kommando1981 on October 20, 2015, 07:42:15 PM
Just got this working on my FX. Nice job on the patch!!!! :clap:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on October 21, 2015, 12:58:25 PM
Just got this working on my FX. Nice job on the patch!!!! :clap:
Thanks! I hope that you enjoy the game. :)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on October 21, 2015, 07:24:38 PM
Thank you! :D
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: tknjin on October 21, 2015, 08:36:05 PM
congratulations on the patch release SamIAm :)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: xelement5x on June 03, 2016, 06:30:19 PM
I've been playing this a lot the last couple of day and I really want to say thanks again to you guys for translating it. It's quite fun to play this game when I get a bit of downtime, and the anime sequences are so well done!
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: SamIAm on June 04, 2016, 03:14:12 AM
It's really a game like none other. I'm glad you like it!
Thanks for the post. :D
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esteban on June 04, 2016, 04:23:54 AM
'Tis a bittersweet experience...if only more shoot-em-ups had been released...
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: esadajr on June 06, 2016, 04:58:46 AM
Shows what the FX was capable of. Again, thanks for the labor of love translating.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: _joshuaTurbo on June 06, 2016, 09:13:06 AM
I finally got to enjoy this game as well over the last couple months. Truly an excellent chootie that you have to spend some time with before you truly understand it.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on June 09, 2016, 05:14:40 PM
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. :)
It was a fun project to work on, and I quickly grew to love the game as something very special, and pretty unique in my experience of shoot-em-ups.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: xelement5x on April 01, 2017, 01:13:10 PM
After our discussion in the other thread, I did a test run of creating the manual spreads for a reproduction manual. Looks pretty good so far but I need better paper stock and a nicer laser printer to use. I emailed Esteban about some modifications I'd need to do to his manual JPGs to make it a printable doc, but it's looking decent! What I have now is just a little basic insert.
After our discussion in the other thread, I did a test run of creating the manual spreads for a reproduction manual. Looks pretty good so far but I need better paper stock and a nicer laser printer to use. I emailed Esteban about some modifications I'd need to do to his manual JPGs to make it a printable doc, but it's looking decent! What I have now is just a little basic insert.
You have to thank elmer and Sam for insisting on multiple iterations of multiple logos.
They wanted the title screen/logo/"branding" to look good in-game and in print.
Ahhh ... but it's you that actually drew it and made it look good! :wink:
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Mathius on May 04, 2017, 03:36:03 PM
I am slowboating my first PC-FX from Japan at this very moment. I bet you can guess what the first thing I'll be playing on it is. Thanks you guys for doing this! You are without a doubt greatly appreciated. :)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: elmer on May 07, 2017, 09:15:17 AM
Good luck with the shipping, I hope that everything arrives OK!
SamIAm posted a bunch of hints on tweaking the pots to improve CD-reading, and you may well need that if you're going to burn a copy of Zeroigar.
I hope that you enjoy it. :)
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Mathius on May 07, 2017, 12:30:49 PM
We've got not 1, but 2 reviews of it that were lying around. I'm thinking of adding info about the English fan translation project and a downloads folder for additional hosting of the English patch as well, might as well complement them.
This Downloads section I made some time back, just never got around to publishing a full announcement on my own site, but since Sam's link is currently broken and the mood strikes me, here's all of it with v1.0.1 of the English patch (plus the *correct* BIOS to work with Mednafen!!):
Quote
* Zeroigar ISO Download (Yeah, who cares! ~Everybody downloads, all lie! :P)
* PROPER NEC PC-FX BIOS Download (This works, others don't!)
NEC PC-FX BIOS (1994)(NEC)(JP)[a].7z (http://www.mediafire.com/download/dh7d0w2ve7cj5h8/NEC_PC-FX_BIOS_(1994)(NEC)(JP)%5Ba%5D.7z)
Notes: The Mednafen emulator is the most accurate to play this right on your PC! You need the correct NEC PC-FX BIOS linked above!! To install, unzip it, copy "pcfx.rom" to Mednafen's "firmware" subfolder.
You load CD BIN/CUE or ISO/WAV/CUE images by pointing Mednafen to the CUE file. Simple way, for an example, make a batch file called Zeroigar.bat with this line in it:
mednafen -loadcd pcfx "C:\GAMES\PCFX\Zeroigar\Zeroigar.cue" Where in the Zeroigar subfolder I have the whole CD ISO/WAV/CUE image file set and Mednafen is in the PCFX folder, etc.
Sam's teaser again embedded for the heck of it.
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Arkhan on January 22, 2020, 12:43:22 PM
shut the fuck up NightWolve.
ayyyyyy
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: _joshuaTurbo on January 23, 2020, 04:39:58 PM
Title: Re: ZEROIGAR RELEASE!
Post by: Zoslik on December 22, 2022, 02:43:25 AM
Hi guys. Maybe Im doing something wrong, but I can not make Zeroigar to run on my NEC PC-FX. I got licensed CD, and i burn some CR with over FX games. All games are running smothly, but Zeroigar is not running at all. ](*,) I try 2 different images, but both are not working. Maybe somebody can suggest something. :-k