Topic: Akumajou Densetsu - Localization / Title Screen Redone

[Inccubus]

Current IPS patch is attached at the bottom of this post!!

http://www.romhacking.net/reviews/1485/

An Akumajou Densetsu Translation hack originally made by Vice Translations.

The previous hack was edited to create a new custom title screen to have the USA name of the game. Original graphics were created by user Vanya.

Also, this hack changes most of the names used in the translation project of Vice Translations, making this a localization project.

Some examples, the name from the previous hack had “Ralph Belmondo”, this was changed to Trevor Belmont to make it as closely related to it’s USA counterpart. Other changes include Sypha Velmundes (or something like that) to Sypha Belnades, and Grant Danusty to Grant Danasty. This was intented to make it as closely related to the original canon as possible, making this the real worthy succesor of the original 2 Castlevanias with proper difficulty and a great sound!

    Changelog:

v1.0 - Initial release.

v1.1 - Moved the subtitle text “Dracula’s Curse” a little bit to the right so it is more centered and balanced.

v1.2 - Standarized the title screen color palette. This solves the issue in which the letters “D” and “E” of the subtitle had a slightly blue-ish color than the rest of the letters.

v2.0 - Major changes to title screen. Konami logo is now smaller and the subtitle has been finally changed to a blood-red color.

v2.1 - Bug fix. The title screen loaded for the introduction sequence is different from the Main Title Screen, resulting in wrong palettes loaded in the introduction.

v3.0 - MAJOR bug fixes. This fixes bugs carried over from Vice Translations’ project, in which the ending sequences for Sypha, Alucard and Trevor had misplaced text when the words scroll upwards. Other changes include:

1) Main Title Screen, including Introduction sequence and Ending sequence now have the same palette and sprites.

2) All characters have been localized for North American audiences. This means Grant Danusty is now Grant DaNasty and Sypha is now a Belnades. Same goes for Ralph Belmondo to Trevor Belmont in the ending sequence(forgot to change that one.

3) Subtitle font changed to match that of the ending credits.

4) Quotation marks missing from the ending sequence. This was an issue regarding to the size of the name entry conflicting with the quotation marks.

This is a little project I started a while back.
I felt that The translation of the original version of CV3 needed a properly localized title screen instead of the not very Castlevania like one it came with.
I got stuck at one point and ShadowOne333 picked it back up and expanded it to include some localization tweaks.
With some additional help from Proveaux I've gotten involved again.

In version 4 of the patch it will be split into two versions.
The first will be the official localization; "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse".
The second will have my own translation of the original title as the new subtitle; "Castlevania III: Legend of the Demon Castle".
Now I'm just about done except for some further tweaks that I'm doing of my own accord.
Specifically, I fixed the trapdoors in the first stage so they appear brown all the time instead of being blue initially then turning brown while they turn.
I still need to play through the other stages that have trapdoors to make sure they didn't get borked.
Then some modifications to the intro animation are needed because the part with the lightning uses a different tile map from the main title screen graphics.
I'm hell bent on fixing all the white frames in the intro so that they no longer have a missing pixel in the upper left hand corner.
Also, I'd like to keep trying to make the title cursor into an animated flame and change the two options to "New Game" and "Continue".

When this patch is complete, I'm going to try do a couple of other separate enhancement patches.
1) SRAM Patch: Create a save system from the existing password system.
2) Grant Patch: Add Grant's knife attack from the US version and allow him to use the Dagger, Holy Cross, and Holy Water sub-weapons.
3) Alucard Patch: Add a sword attack for Alucard and make the Balls of Destruction into a sub-weapon.

Original Japanese Version:                  Vice Translations Version:                  Original US Version:


My Initial Work:                               My Original Mock Up:                         Currently released version:


My Working Version:

[BLOOD MONKEY]

Looking good! I hope this project actually gets somewhere! (compared to most other awesome hacks)

[X]

Did you also have an idea about using the 'V' like a vampire's fang with dripping blood? That's just like what I did for that test image I made. Nice to know we think alike on some things 

[Inccubus]

Did you also have an idea about using the 'V' like a vampire's fang with dripping blood? That's just like what I did for that test image I made. Nice to know we think alike on some things 

That's exactly what I thought when I was thinking of a way to keep the blood splatters of the original.

[X]

And there's no better way of expressing that. The 'V' is very self-explanatory in that regard. Although I find it a shame that Konami didn't utilize it like we have for their CV games. Or maybe they had and Nintendo told them no cause it was too graphic. I personally think it would have been killer 

[BLOOD MONKEY]

I personally think it would have been killer 

I don't want my letters stabbing me, X.

[X]

A little "bite" to your game won't hurt that badly, lol.

[Inccubus]

Ha! Death by puns. 
I'm going to go ahead and post the ips patch for the current version in case anyone wants to try it out.
Let me know if you run into anything "odd".
Oh, and I already know about the wierd graphics on the title and intro sequence.
Those are intentional for testing purposes.

[ShadowOne333]

Wow, I didn't know you posted the hack here also.
Great! XD

I see that you also want to expand some other things in the ROM.
Have you been able to implement any of those yet?

More specifically, the SRAM save feature, I am really interested in that one.

I lost track of the links, but these could be implemented in the official RomHacking.net site for the hack itself, submit the changes and add two patches in the .rar, one with the "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse" title screen and another with the "Legend of the Demon Castle" title screen.

Good to know that you are still working on it.