V Gundam
English Patch
Version 1.00 IPS
Current Release: Apr. 29, 2007
Intial Release: Oct. 31, 2006
by Twilight Translations
copyright 2006
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1. Introduction
2. Development
3. Patch History
4. Credits
5. Acknowledgements

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1. Introduction

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V Gundam is an action game based on the anime series by the same name. It was released by
Bandai in early 1994.

As a game, it doesn't really stand up to criticism. The enemy AI is laughable, at best; 
the V Gundam controls like a brick; and your most effective weapon is also your weakest, so
be ready to spend a lot of time hiding behind your shield firing your Vulcans at the enemy.

Sadly, V Gundam, like nearly every other video game based on an anime, avoids going out of the
way at all cost to explain to the player exactly what the hell is going on. In that sense,
V Gundam should not be considered as a replacement to the series. If you play it after you've
seen the series, however, you might enjoy it.

Easily the thing that stands out the most about the game is the graphics. The majority of the
graphics are very, very pretty, and, in the case of most of the cutscenes, breath taking. If
only the developers had spent as much time on the core gameplay and design as they had on the
graphics.

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2. Development

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After all this you might be wondering why I would even bother going through the trouble of
hacking the game and finding a translator for it. Well, back when I first started, I thought
about working on this game but didn't understand things well enough to do it at the time.

In retrospect, this is a really simple, straight forward game to hack. Flash forward a couple
years and I decided to take another whack at it and use it as a stepping stone for learning
the ins and outs of the SNES. So during the summer of last year (2005), I sat down and
managed to shrink the font down from the 16x16 font used in the Japanese version to a more
English friendly 8x16.

Over the next couple of months, there were a couple of translators who signed on to help, but
then disappeared. Then in March (of 2006), the clouds parted and the lights shined through.
Suzaku (a fellow Gundam fan) signed on board and worked on translating the game's script over
the next 7 months or so.

When he finally completed it earlier this month (October '06), he suggested the script could
be a lot better if it weren't for the space (on-screen; space in the ROM wasn't a problem)
restrictions. I mentioned a variable width font would probably help and set out to implement
one. Seeing as how it was the first (and probably the only stock ASM translation "tricks" I
hadn't done), I didn't exactly know where to start. Luckily, Gideon Zhi of Aeon Genesis fame
was kind enough to let me take a look at his source code for his Rudra patch, which was more
than enough for me to figure out how to do it.

With the VWF in, Suzaku and I sat down and stepped through every single string and meticulous
revised the script. In some cases we were even forced to add filler to pad the text out to
avoid having a string break amongst 6 word sentence. In the end, I feel that despite the "lite"
nature of the game's script, it is really worth reading.

Some time during all of this, I approached Kitsune_Sniper of Vice Translations to design a
title screen in the same vein as the official English title screen. Once he had the design
finished, I asked Ryusui of Watercrown Productions (*SYLVANIANS*), having seen how accurately
he had reproduced the color scheme for his Sylvanian Families 4 translation, if he would care
to take a whack at V Gundam. The end result is quite possibly my favorite title screen ever.
If you have no other reason to play the game, play it just to see the title screen. It's that
good.

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3. Patch History

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-Version 1.00 IPS

 The archive now includes the patch in both the NINJA format and the more common IPS format.
 If you choose to use the IPS patch, apply it to a headerless ROM. No changes have been made
 to the content of the patch.

-Version 1.00

 Everything is translated and thoroughly tested. That doesn't mean that there aren't
 still bugs lurking around, just that we didn't find them. If you find any read
 drop me an email about it.

 The patch is in NINJA format, for information on this see the official site at:
 http://ninja.cinnamonpirate.com/

 I'm actually very, very pleased with the patch. When I started working on it, I wasn't
 really excited about it, and now I want to tell everyone about it, despite the cardboard
 like gameplay.

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4. Credits

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V Gundam - The Game
Translation Team:

RedComet - Programmer (me)
Suzaku - Translator

Kitsune_Sniper - Title Design
Ryusui - Title Color Scheme

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5. Acknowledgements

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I think I mentioned everyone who contributed to this project, but I'd just like to thank
everyone who did. This wouldn't be even half as good as it is without you.

Ultimately, I hope you enjoy this patch. Check back with Twilight Translations for future
releases! Cheers!