Notice

Starting October 12th, 2023 GitHub is enforcing mandatory two-factor authentication on my account.
I'm not going to comply and move all my activity to GitLab instead.
Any future updates / releases will be available at: https://gitlab.com/gitendo/bm7j
Thanks and see you there!

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Macross 7: Let's take on the heart of the galaxy!

English translation of Macross 7: Ginga no Heart o Furuwasero!! (マクロス7 銀河のハートを奮わせろ!!) created for Wildfang Translations. Started on Jun 2019, finished on Oct 2021, released now. Thank Ichido for all delays. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm releasing complete source of the project. This is for anyone interested how the usual translation / patch is created in the details.

└───bm7j
    ├───dumper     - script extracting utility
    ├───gfx        - graphical patches
    ├───inc        - game code patches
    ├───photo      - physical release photos
    ├───rom        - needs to be here
    ├───script     - jp and en files
    └───bm7e.s     - asm project file

A brief description of what has been done:

• intro : replaced original screens with translated counterparts, couple of screens were added to fit the whole story since kanji takes less space than english script
• new title screen logo
• options menu : modified routine to work with 8x8 font and improved readability
• text engine modification : 8x16 font for dialogs, 8x8 font for HUD and game menu
• save screen : edited graphic
• credits : replaced original screens with translated counterparts
• dmg warning : replaced original screen
• script : couple of banks had to be disassembled and modified to fit neccessary content - this was usual relocation and graphic shrinking done with bmp2cgb
• save routine : reversed and transplanted flash save which works with certain chinese bootleg carts - neccessary for physical release, not present here

To faciliate translation process I've programmed script dumper (all the original and translated files are in script directory, so you don't need it anyway). Instead of creating usual .ips file I deceided to take slightly different approach and exploit .isx format. This resulted in new features added to isx2gb.

Build system requires:

• Intelligent Systems assembler and linker
• isx2gb - get latest version, available from my repository

After successful assembly and linking process you should get translated file bm7j-patched.gbc in rom directory. Feel free to PR makefile for Linux users - I'm too lazy to create one.

Pictures of limited run physical release for die hard collectors and Macross fans! (Nope, I don't sell these so don't ask.)

The End