Bug Fixes

[Pyriel]

Obvious to you, maybe. I keep having to look that stuff up in a dictionary. Now that I have, I seem to remember one of the other games referring to trading tips as "gossip". It's vaguely interesting to me, but not at all important.

I managed to procure a Japanese copy of the game. I mostly wanted it for comparison, and so I could work out the text encoding. With a little time, I should be able to dump a delimited file of any large block of untranslated text, that we can work from.

Code: Select all

Yeah, it's supposed to have music. But out of curiosity, couldn't you just compare it to the PAL version to see how they fixed it?

In theory, yes. The problem is, I sort of need to know what they fixed, before I see how they fixed it. Once they compile this stuff, and strip out the debug symbols, there's very little to identify what deals with music, sound effects, or drawing Dumbo in the upper-right corner of the screen. The error I managed to capture occurs at such a low level in the Sony library's CD code, that it's only useful as a clue. I need to trace it back to its origin, which could be a hard-coded channel number in some bit of the WAR file's code, or something derived mathematically from the audio stream's header data.

Edit: Urgh. The character encoding appears to be completely custom, and it's context-specific, apparently. A particular shift encoding gets 火の紋章 in a rune name, but it's 火の followed by different Kanji in the description field. The untranslated stuff is mostly dialog, so one set of shifts, but working out their encoding will take some time.

Edit 2: I think I've exhausted my supply of CJK and Japanese text-encodings. I don't see one that remotely matches up to this, so I have to assume it's something they worked out in-house, based on the characters used in their script. I can still decode better than half of the Japanese text, since I know enough to be able to sort out the Latin characters, and the Hiragana and Katakana. Fully decoding is going to take some time. Especially if I have to do it by myself. I used a Kanji dictionary to look up the first ten or so characters. Only took about half an hour.

Edit 3: Proving once again that I often get my best ideas when I get up and do something else for a while. I cleaned up the image a bit, converted it to gray-scale, carved it up into a few pieces, and removed some of the garbage. Then I ran the image through a Japanese OCR program. It wasn't 100% effective, but with a few more slices and passes, I should get well over 90% of the character set without having to resort to looking them up by radicals or trying to get an identification tool to recognize them one-by-one.

Edit 4: Hastily assembled web page of the conversion results for about 5/16ths of the Kanji and character set. I already have the simple stuff mapped to encoding, but there are a couple of characters I can't recognize. A couple of them I suspect aren't actual characters, and are just menu type symbols like the "Lv." and "Exp." symbols. The "suspect" characters are yellow. The one I outright could not determine is red. The columns are rows are taken from the image I attached.

Character Matrix

Eventually I want to describe all of this in a document that ties it to the encoding, but for now, I just want to get the character set itself completed.

Edit 5: I finished the character set, mapped it to the encoding, and translated the first few lines of dialogue in the game as a test. So far, I've been able to locate the text strings in the game files reliably, but I haven't been able to tie them to any kind of tree or control data. It may just be hard-coded in the event code. In any case, I should be able to start pulling text later in the week.

[Pyriel]

Sorry for the double-post. Here are the decoded texts for all the trade tips. It looks like there are 144 in total. (A gross of gossip?) The files are encoded as UTF-16, so any modern browser should be able to render the characters.

Uwasa 1
Uwasa 2

A few notes:

1. The length isn't a count of characters, but a count of bytes required to store the string in the S2(J) text encoding. Since the game seeks by block address on the CD (rather than by filename), I can't change file sizes without realigning or rebuilding everything. That's a task that borders on impossible, so the translated text needs to stay within that byte count. Not to mention that all the "area", "shop", "boss", etc. files are actually executable after a fashion, and coded to be loaded at a particular place in memory with absolute memory addresses encoded in the data.
2. The following are control codes that can be used with the US version:
   05 - Followed by 00, inserts the hero's name. Otherwise, seems to be gibberish. Insert into text with {Chara 0}.
   06 - Sets a delay (next byte is value) between the printing of each character that follows. Insert into text with {Delay %time%}.
   07 - delay once, and continue printing. Insert into text with {Pause %time%}
   08 - Sets color for following characters. Also superscripts characters a bit, when greater than 0x10. Insert with {Color %hexcode%}
   • 00 - default (white)
   • 01 - blue
   • 02 - grey
   • 03 - dark blue
   • 04 - dark grey
   • 05 - red
   • 06 - green
   • 07 - dark red
   • 08 - dark green
   • 09 - dark red
   • 0A - orange
   • 0B - blue-green
   • 0C - black
   • 0D - black
     
     + 10 thru F0 - Elevated (no difference for any value)
   0D - pauses with prompt lower right, and waits for button press.
   0E - Newline (CRLF)
   0F - clears the dialog area, and continues printing.
   
   0D-0F occupy one byte each, and are used frequently. The other codes require two bytes, and should be used sparingly, except for 05.

On another topic, is there any actual interest in this? The response has been anemic, so I'd like to know if, overall, I'm just wasting my time.

[Hirathien]

I'd say you are wasting your time. The most people probably wouldn't care about it. After all, this just fixes stuff with the NTSC version, right? People that got the PAL doesn't have much need for this.

But if you feel up for it, by all means do it.

[Pyriel]

For now, NTSC-only, yeah. As I understand it, some of these bugs affect the various PAL versions, and I think some of them are also present in the original Japanese version. Those can be fixed too, and much more easily. I just started with NTSC because I own it, and it has all the bugs.

[Pyriel]

For kicks, I started a Wiki to track all of this in future. I think I've fixed most of the bugs, aside from text issues. Although, I've heard that the Window Sets and Sound Sets might suffer from a problem similar to the Recipes. It's just easier to avoid them, because you don't have to keep 20 of them in your storage, and the characters can't be recruited quite as early.

I've reached Tinto in my own test play-through, and everything seems to be working out fine, so I've posted a preliminary release of the NTSC patch on the Wiki. Once I get to the point where I can see the trade tips, I'll probably just replace them with an edited machine translation. I could pretty easily swap it with the text from the PAL (E) version, but that text is technically copyrighted, and I'm not sure how that applies when inserting it into the exact same title from a different region.

Next thing I'm going to do is check over the PAL versions to see which bugs slipped through the cracks. I know the Level 99 bug, and the Lamb bug still exist, as well as the Tenzan Chimera being absent, and I'm pretty sure the Recipe bug is still there.

http://suikodenbugfixes.wikispaces.com/

[Raww Le Klueze]

Pretty much the only things that were fixed for PAL was the music and data transfer. Everything else still applies, Farm content, recipes, sheep etc, though I have never in umpteenth playthroughs encountered the lv 99 glitch in PAL but I wouldn't go as far as say it's not there.

There's also a PAL exclusive glitch when you fight Rowd where if you take too long the music will go weird and finally the game freezes. Easiest to simply avoid by losing.

Does that McDohl name-fix fix the Toran castle one as well?

I could pretty easily swap it with the text from the PAL (E) version, but that text is technically copyrighted, and I'm not sure how that applies when inserting it into the exact same title from a different region.

Well, technically you'd still be breeching copyright by providing an unlicensed re-translation so I wouldn't worry that much about it.

[Antimatzist]

There's also a PAL exclusive glitch when you fight Rowd where if you take too long the music will go weird and finally the game freezes. Easiest to simply avoid by losing.

Thats one possibility, the other is that after that happens you do ridicolous amount of damage and win the battle easily.. afaik.

[Pyriel]

Pretty much the only things that were fixed for PAL was the music and data transfer. Everything else still applies, Farm content, recipes, sheep etc, though I have never in umpteenth playthroughs encountered the lv 99 glitch in PAL but I wouldn't go as far as say it's not there.

There's also a PAL exclusive glitch when you fight Rowd where if you take too long the music will go weird and finally the game freezes. Easiest to simply avoid by losing.

Does that McDohl name-fix fix the Toran castle one as well?

I could pretty easily swap it with the text from the PAL (E) version, but that text is technically copyrighted, and I'm not sure how that applies when inserting it into the exact same title from a different region.

Well, technically you'd still be breeching copyright by providing an unlicensed re-translation so I wouldn't worry that much about it.

I know for a fact that the level 99 glitch is still there. I actually used a disassembly from PAL (E) as the example on the Wiki because I just happened to have the SLES open at that time. I never heard of that Rowd bug. They sure messed up a lot with music.

I honestly forgot that the castle name was imported. I didn't check, but it should be fixed. There's no reason it wouldn't use the same copy/re-encode function that I had to modify, and there were three calls to it. Two of them should have been instances of McDohl, and I guess the other was the castle. I'll have a quick look later.

Yeah, I'm not too worried about the copyright issues. I sort of doubt that they'll give a damn either way, as long as I'm not posting the full game.

[KFCrispy]

i thought "please accept the job" is really funny because you see throughout the game the dude is stuck there guarding the door. he probably HATES the job and is asking anyone who talks to him to trade up!

Toran Castle's name is also messed up, and I think even with the old code to rename McDohl to whatever you want, the display inside Gregminster Palace or the Old Book mentioning his name (one of them) messes up McDohl's name even further. I recall that I used a code to manually change the first 2 letters of his name to Mc (because each code controlled 2 characters at a time or something), and the Gregminster display or Old Book named him cMDohl.

Raww seems to be looking for the something similar to the Chrono Trigger DS release, where everything got retranslated--even the ones that many Americans appreciated, like Frog's English accent, got removed. minor tweaks were also implemented, like the stat "tabs" got renamed (i don't know the new name off the top of my head, but they used to be Power Tab, Speed Tab, Magic Tab).


Besides the Solitude Rune, don't forget there is a Bath Set item that you can't obtain in the game either: http://suikosource.com/games/gs2/secrets/

[Pyriel]

Finally going back to this. I simultaneously got busy, and burned myself out on the project by spending too much time reverse-engineering the scripting engine.

I'm slightly less than half-way done with the scripting commands, but I only really need that in order to identify, extract, and replace the dialog for re-translation efforts. For minor patches it's not strictly necessary.

I finished up my test play-through, and the only problem with the patch I noticed was that the the Magus in Tenzan's name wasn't modified. Not sure what I missed there, but it shouldn't be hard to correct that. I did discover that there's yet another audio track that doesn't play properly in the NTSC version. Thanks to the popularity of "Let's Play" on Youtube, it was pretty easy to confirm. Every NTSC "Let's Play" for Suikoden II is silent, but the song can be heard in the German version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... -N4#t=539s. I couldn't find this song in the available sound tracks.

I really wish that guy didn't feel the need to read all the text for the illiterate, though.

[BadPotato]

I guess this is already well know, but here some more missing war theme music:
-gilbert battle (japanese version)
-Same at Refugee massacre (japanese)

If the patch file from your wiki is the last version, I can probably try a little playthought, if you need more people to test your work. Thought, that may depend if I manage to sync the patched game with my old tool assisted speedrun. But still, I want to let you know that I'm definitly interested by your work... so keep up the good work!

Also here some other glitch that could be worthy to add to your wiki:

- By pass a loading zone (1) (2) (3)
- Sky rocket leveling against higher level monster
- The kindness rune glitch
- Early Matilda border glitch
- The potch glitch
- Early Amada recruit
- Magical stone poweup (die and reload the game with the same stat)
- Get unfair advantage against luca blight by putting your hero solo in the "left backrow" at the night raid
- Equip a shield to a characther without shield feature
... There probably some other, but maybe someone already made a list of these glitch.


Also, for those interested in PAL translation... it seem that the same romhacker team who made up a complete french version of suikoden 1(PAL) (thread) are now working on suikoden 1&2 for PSP (thread). So I guess that if anyone want to start a translation project, at least they could get some inspiration from their future PSP patch.

And now talking about it, did anyone test if the PSP version fixed must of the glitch?

[Pyriel]

Thanks for your input. I should probably come up with some kind of bugzilla tracking or something.

• The two battle music instances you posted are both War Theme #1. That song is fixed in the existing patch, and I've produced GameShark codes to fix it.
• Of the three wall-breaking glitches, only one of the links provides an explanation for triggering it. I think. I only scanned the comments, and it looked like an explanation on how to avoid it, with an "instead of" thrown in. Are the glitches just a matter of finding exactly the right spot for the other two, or is it more complicated?
• I'm not sure if the sky-rocketing level is exactly a bug. You're talking about taking a level 39 character into a fight in L'Renouille with a fortune rune (for example), right? That's more like lack of foresight on the part of the designers when setting up the experience calculations. The only thing I could do is cap it or scale it way back. I'd consider either one, but probably as a optional tweak rather than a bug-fix.
• I vaguely remember the Kindness rune glitch. Something about generating an under-run. I think it's documented on the front page, so I'll look at it.
• I have the Matilda Gate on my list, but it's lower priority. I wanted to get through the well-known glitches that are game-breaking or otherwise detrimental first. If I remember right, there are ways to break the game when you play about in Matilda territory too early, but they can be avoided without jumping through frustrating hoops. It's not annoying on the same level as the Recipe Bug, in other words.
• The potch glitch is the same as Matilda Gate. It's on my list, but it takes some effort to trigger it, and it's not game-breaking.
• I've never heard of recruiting Amada early before. Strange. I don't know if I could hammer buttons fast enough to make it happen. It's worth looking into, but it might be un-fixable. I don't have much leeway to add things to the game, so if it requires an additional script command or something, there may not be room to insert it.
• Magical stone power-up--same a s Matilda Glitch, but I'm on the fence about this one. If you're willing to power-up that way, I'm sort of hesitant to remove the option. Especially since it could mean removing the ability to level-up and die as well. Using the level-up and die exploit is about the only way you can beat Rowd without outright using a cheat device, as far as I know.
• How do you get an advantage by configuring the Hero's party that way against Luca Blight? I've never heard of it before. I'll have to find a save and give it a shot.
• How do you equip a shield to someone who ordinarily can't? I'm aware you can do it with a cheat, or at least there's a cheat that prevents the crash that occurs when you do it. I wasn't aware it was a glitch in the game, though.

The patch on the wiki is the latest I've released. About an hour ago I fixed the War Song #3 (Decisive Battle) issue, and corrected the patch for the Magus in Tenzan pass. I just discovered that there's another song that doesn't play, however. Since I've just refreshed my memory on how to trace the audio issues, I'm planning on fixing that before I upload a new version.

I ran across that translation project when I was searching for information on the character sets. I haven't had any communication with them, but I was intrigued by their ability to sync the dialogs between versions. I can theoretically do it, but since the dialogs are only "structured" by the game's event scripts, it's rather tedious to make it happen. I don't know enough about Suikoden I to assume that the methodology is similar, though, and from everything I've seen, they haven't touched Suikoden II.

Edit: I did this a while ago, but I just found the notes and picture in my folder. I thought it was a little funny, anyway.

[Raww Le Klueze]

- Sky rocket leveling against higher level monster

Not a glitch.

- Magical stone poweup (die and reload the game with the same stat)

Not a glitch, it's how the game is designed. It's the whole point of having the "Don't give up" option, otherwise the two options would be the bloody same.

- Early Amada recruit

That can only happen with a tool assist, it's not a surprise that the game doesn't work if you break it's limitations. You might as well include the "bug" that you can only win 100 potch at a time in Chinchichorin if you use infinite money codes.

And now talking about it, did anyone test if the PSP version fixed must of the glitch?

The PSP version doesn't fix any glitches that were in the Japanese version aside from the Matilda Gate.

How do you equip a shield to someone who ordinarily can't? I'm aware you can do it with a cheat, or at least there's a cheat that prevents the crash that occurs when you do it. I wasn't aware it was a glitch in the game, though.

As far as I'm aware, you can't. You can swap armors between people who can't normally wear certain types but you can't give shields to people who can't use them.

[Celes]

- Magical stone poweup (die and reload the game with the same stat)

Not a glitch, it's how the game is designed. It's the whole point of having the "Don't give up" option, otherwise the two options would be the bloody same.

Actually, while I do believe the exp keeping feature might be intended to help players which are continually dying, the trick with stat stones or stat rune pieces was an oversight (this goes for suiko 1, 2 and 3). Most likely they wanted to give you an advantage by keeping levels and stats, so these values were not reloaded by the 'try again' option. However, everything else is and the magic stones are the only available option to modify your basic parameters permanently, so its actually stored within the character save data. The game cannot determine between stats given by level ups (which are 'final' due to the lv stored as well) and stats given by stones anymore.

[Antimatzist]

But I don't think this one is fix-worthy. It's a trick some players use, but I guess 90% don't overuse this trick and it isn't really gamebreaking imo.

The same with the level-up-to-99 thing. I don't think they overlooked it, ebcause this is the only way to get your characters to a level over the 60s. I don't like Tierkreis for the exp-cap, which cuts the exp at 10.000 (this means you can get 10 levels at most) - why make Levels that go up to 100 if you will NEVER be able to reach even 70?

Wasn't there also a glitch that the game might freeze if you choose between Kasumi and Valeria? I never encountered it, but I heard of it iirc.