Castlevania Dracula X: Rondo of Blood [PC Engine CD] Patch RELEASE!!!

[Burnt Lasagna]

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood Translation Patch

Logo by fragmare

Hello and welcome to the Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo | Castlevania: Rondo of Blood English Translation Patch (PSP script port to PC Engine/TurboGrafx-CD).

After many years of leaving this project abandoned I can happily say that this patch has reached its much needed 100% status! However the credits have not made it into this release of the patch (if ever) so in order to compensate for this inconvenience we have included the translation for the credits in the ReadMe.

To make clear, this patch will translate the PC Engine CD version (Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo) of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood into English. Everything will be translated; even the voiced dialogue will be replaced with the official Konami English dub from Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP). However miscellaneous grunts will retain their original Japanese.

It also replaces the old German narrator with the new narration that was in the PSP and VC release of the game. If you, for whatever reason, do not like this you can easily swap back the original narration (Track03) after it is done patching.     

But enough talk! Have at you!

** Download links ***

• ROMHacking.net Project Page
• English Patch v1.02 (17.6 MB)
• !!BONUS!!
  Patched Dracula X ISO/WAV/CUE CD Image Fileset (448 MB) via FantasyAnime.com! Just download, unzip, then burn to CD-R with ImgBurn or mount the CUE file for emulators, it is PCE-FX ready-to-go!

Credits

Andrew (cubanraul)
Was the Director of the project back in 2004 - 2006 and worked on all text/audio hacking that was done during that point. Also worked on making the new Patcher.

Michael G. (Burnt Lasagna)
(The guy who wrote this ReadMe) I started this project back up in early 2011 and directed the project from 2011 onward. I worked on engineering the PSP dub into the voiced cutscenes in the TurboGrafx-CD version along with hacking in new English title cards for the stage names. Also made some minor changes to the Patcher, such as the OGG conversion.   

Andy (pemdawg)
Worked on some early translation and text hacking in 2004 – 2005; currently at the time of writing he's trying to translate the games packaging.     

Tom (tomaitheous/malducci/TurboXray)
Worked on hacking in the new title screen, hacked in the new English "Castlevania: Oops, Wrong Game!!!" title screen, added a new print routine for the opening subtitle system, hacked in the text in signs and added  a new text routine for the ferry man. It's very important to note that this finished version of the patch would not have been possible without Tom. He was the saving grace when all of our team members hit the wall, so please everyone give a big round of applause to Tom!   

Fragmare
Made the graphic for the new title screen and made the logo that you see at the top of this readme.

Vanya
Made the "Castlevania: Oops, Wrong Game!!!" title screen.

DarknessSavior
Did the translation for the ferryman, signs, and the error message billboard in StageX.

Reyvgm
Made the new English graphics for the signs. 

Special Thanks

David Shadoff
Made the TurboGrafx-16 ADPCM Codec that was used when inserting the English ADPCM.

Nicolas Livaditis (NightWolve)
Made the FileBySize.exe that helped stabilize the patcher. Also made the included TurboRip program, please see the ReadMe that's alongside TurboRip for more information.

AstroBlue
Made the ASCII Logo that you see in the Patcher.

romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=13549.0
http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/td/a/dx_1.htm

[Arkhan Asylum]

sweet!

PS: Do you press up to jump?! I dont.

[Keranu]

Cool, cool project! Gonna have to try this out soon.

[MotherGunner]

Very very cool.

[SignOfZeta]

While I personally have no need for such a thing, this is a really cool project and it will make a lot of people happy. Great job!

[GohanX]

Burnt Lasagna, I think I love you. I'm going to try to burn this right now!

[BigusSchmuck]

Sweeto! Now I really can't wait until Duo gets back from the shop!

[munchiaz]

So, we had the talk about CD-R, and killing the laser. what do you guys recommend for burning?

[GohanX]

Short version:  Use good CDRs (I use Taiyo Yuden) burned at the slowest setting. Use the PC Engine TOC fixer program to fix your ISOs. Burn at the slowest possible speed!

I made a copy, and I can confirm that it works both in Magic Engine and real hardware, tested on a TG16/CD unit. This is great!

By the way, I think your brother did a rather good job with Death's voice. It's certainly no worse than Richter's voice actor. Thanks a million!

[BigT]

This is certainly an unexpected but welcomed surprise!

Thanks a bunch!  Can't wait to play this game in English... I haven't played the PSP version yet!

[TurboXray]

Very awesome. Gonna try this baby out

[Bernie]

Very nice job!  Thanks for sharing.  I just finished burning it to CDr with ImgBurn, and it works flawlessly in my Turbo Duo.  Awesome job to all involved!!

[TurboXray]

Patched and tried it out on the emulator real quick. Nice work. Gonna have to burn this to CDR and give it a full run through on the real system sometime

[Burnt Lasagna]

Great to see so much positive feedback for this patch!

I was wandering if anyone here has gotten the chance to thoroughly test the patch on the real hardware, because I have never personally tested it before (don't own a real TurboGrafx-CD). I have no I idea why it wouldn't work, just curious is all.

Also, has anyone beaten the game with this patch, if so were there any problems?

[Arjak]

How the heck did I miss this!? I'm going to try it out tonight when I get home!

[incrediblehark]

very nice! Great job Burnt Lasagna and cubanraul!

[Arjak]

I've just spent some time playing with the patch, and I like what I've seen so far! At this rate, all that is left is translating the rest of the text, like level names, the secret minigame you get when playing with the wrong system card, etc.

Even considering all the work left to do, you've done good, Burnt Lasagna!

[Burnt Lasagna]

At this rate, all that is left is translating the rest of the text, like level names, the secret minigame you get when playing with the wrong system card, etc.

Sadly that my never happen.
The rest of the games text is actually in images. In order to translate it you would have find a way to extract the image, edit it and then try and reinsert it back in. This would be very difficult and I don't know how you would go about doing this nor does Cubanraul.  

[cubanraul]

Sadly that my never happen.
The rest of the games text is actually in images. In order to translate it you would have find a way to extract the image, edit it and then try and reinsert it back in. This would be very difficult and I don't know how you would go about doing this nor does Cubanraul.

Feidian is the tool we used to start dumping & replacing the graphics.  We never got very far with it when the project kind of fell apart back in 2005.  I couldn't get any interest on the castlevania board to continue it (should have come here!) and it had been abandoned until you swept in to save the day.

If anyone is interested in giving it a shot Feidian is still available here:  wayback://sourceforge.net/feidian/feidian-0.90a.tar.gz
You will need PHP installed, not sure if it version specific though.  You will also need the PCE sprite tile definition:  wayback://feidian.sourceforge.net/data/pce16.php.gz

usage: feidian.php -cr pce16,10,1,0x57A300 dracx.iso 57A300

It was a lot of guess work for me to get good results and maybe someone here has more experience.

[Burnt Lasagna]

Hey cubanraul!

I remember seeing those instructions for dumping the graphics on your website a while back but I was unsure whether you had managed to successfully modify image and inserted it back in.

I can never get feidian to work. Originally it would just blow up into mess of text whenever I tried to start it with those parameters. Luckily I was able to fix that problem by replacing every "<?" at the top of FEIDIAN's source files with "<?php" and it started working normally. Unfortunately it still gives me crap about not defining the color depth.

I was able to get better results with a tile editor called YY-CH. Here is an example of what I was able to get done in less than 3 minutes, though I'm sure feidian would be easier to use in the long run. Yeah so I guess editing the games images may not be as hard as I originally thought.

[Burnt Lasagna]

*double post*
I also just updated the main page.

[Duo_R]

This is awesome

[GohanX]

I've played through this a bit, and I have a question. The English tracks have a bit of static, is that from the recording or is there something wrong with my burn of the disc?

[FraGMarE]

Hah!  This is great!  I'll help out with the graphics editing, if you need it. 

[Burnt Lasagna]

I've played through this a bit, and I have a question. The english tracks have a bit of static, is that from the recording or is there something wrong with my burn of the disc?

No, they shouldn't have any static (does it do this with emulation also?). I remember getting a problem like this with the BIN/CUE patch if I didn't rip it correctly, are you using this? If so, I recommend using the ISO-WAV patch and use the version of TurboRip that I included with the patch to rip the game.   

Hah!  This is great!  I'll help out with the graphics editing, if you need it. 

Thanks for your offer, but I may not need it. I plan to look deeper into modify graphics as soon as soon as the holiday commotion subsides for a bit (Happy Thanksgiving by the way! ). I'll let you know if I need any help though.

[Bernie]

The TurboRip version is certainly the better way to go.  Been using this tool for a few years now.  I have no static in my burned copy.

[GohanX]

Burnt Lasagna: I'll rerip the game and give it a shot. I didn't use TurboRip on the first disc.

[Keith Courage]

I can't get turborip to finish ripping my disc. It gets to 99% and then just sits there reading forever 

[Burnt Lasagna]

I can't get turborip to finish ripping my disc. It gets to 99% and then just sits there reading forever 

What track does it stop at, is it the last one? Are you ripping from the disk or a mounted image? If it's mounted image that you downloaded it could be damaged, which is very common with TG16CD games.

I know all rips from imgburn (or any other program that's not CDRWIN or TurboRip) are going to be damaged since it places the tracks at the wrong LBA and will not enforces the PRE/POST-GAP rules for transitions between tracks.

[Keith Courage]

I am using the real game CD that I own not a download of any kind. It stops on the very last track number 22.iso. Maybe it's my PC CD drive?

[Burnt Lasagna]

It stops on the very last track number 22.iso. Maybe it's my PC CD drive?

It really doesn't matter if track22 is a bit messed up since that track is only there to bring up the disk read error message, you almost don't even need it. Just make sure track22 is the same size it's supposed to be in order to maintain the disks original TOC. You can check this with TocFixer

[Bernie]

I am using the real game CD that I own not a download of any kind. It stops on the very last track number 22.iso. Maybe it's my PC CD drive?

hmm..  Thats strange.  Do you have another PC you could try it on?  Maybe TR is having issues with your drive.

[nat]

Sounds like a drive issue to me. Have you tried the /FORCERIP command line parameter?

[Burnt Lasagna]

Sounds like a drive issue to me.

Chances are that's your problems but as I said before you really don't even need track 22 it just needs to be there in order to complete the games TOC. You can literally swap that track out with an ISO full of dummy data that's the same size as track22 and the game will work perfectly fine. The VC releases of TG16CD games actually get rid of the last data track along with the first track because they only serve the purpose of being an error message.

[Keith Courage]

Well when I abort the process I do end up with a track 22 still in my folder. It says that is is 19.5 MB (20,459,520 bytes) in size. Can anyone else confirm this is the correct size for the file?

[Bernie]

Well when I abort the process I do end up with a track 22 still in my folder. It says that is is 19.5 MB (20,459,520 bytes) in size. Can anyone else confirm this is the correct size for the file?

The correct size should be 20,480,000 bytes.  19.5 MB  If you cant get the program to work correctly with your drive, let me know and I can send you the file.  Or, I can just upload the already patched image for you.  Whatever works. 

[Burnt Lasagna]

It could also be something wrong with your disk, is it scratched at all?

You can just put the Track22 that you have into a hex editor (I recommend MadEdit) and add a bunch of zeros near the end in order to pad up the remaining 21,000 bytes, if you went a little over the file size then shave off the excess bytes with TocFixer.

[Keith Courage]

My disc has no scratches whatsoever on it. I wonder if it could also be an issue with me using 64-bit windows 7 with a sata CD drive.

[Bernie]

Im using 7 and a Sata CD drive as well.  It most likely is an issue with your particular drive.

[Burnt Lasagna]

Let's assume for a moment that it's TurboRip that's causing the problem and not your setup or drive.

Try using Ootake's full install feature which is cable of doing the same job, If that gives you the same problem then we know it's your drive.

[Keith Courage]

Thanks for suggesting Ootake. I completely forgot about using that to rip the game. It ripped the game without any errors and my track 22.iso now reads 19.5mb (20,459,520 bytes) which is barely larger than what turborip did for me. I'm gonna try burning the game and see what happens since Ootake was able to finish the ripping process.

[Burnt Lasagna]

Glad that worked out for you Keith.

*update*
I've done some progress on the graphics modification last night!

First off I finally got feidian to work. It turns out that the PC-Engine sprite tile definition that cubanraul has linked to on this forum and on his website is broken, when you download it you literally get a file with practically nothing in it. I was able to find it on another site not broken.
I've been using YY-CH to get the pointers for the graphics and then dumping them in feidian and it works great, much easier than using a tile editor! I've already found a good sum of the pointers last night and I was able to do some quick and dirty test inserts of some images.

This morning I did a much nicer test insert for the prologue. What do you guys think ?

dl.dropbox.com/u/47184537/DraculaX%20English/test2.png

[spenoza]

Tres nice. I think you are on your way!

[Tatsujin]

very cool except of the following:

It also replaces the old German narrator with the new narration that was in Dracula X Chronicles and the Virtual Console release of the game

[Burnt Lasagna]

very cool except of the following:

It also replaces the old German narrator with the new narration that was in Dracula X Chronicles and the Virtual Console release of the game

If you prefer the original intro you can easily swap back the original Track03 after it's done patching.

[Burnt Lasagna]

*update*
Alright, here's another one only with stage 1.

dl.dropbox.com/u/47184537/DraculaX%20English/Test3.bmp

[Arjak]

Loving it! Keep up the good work!

[dairugger]

i just stumbled upon this. this is so freaking awesome! way better than playing it on my psp with those damn borders.. lol

[munchiaz]

I havent downloaded this, but from what i can gather. Can this be applied to a real copy of the game?

[dairugger]

youd have to rip your cd to a image with cdrwin, then apply the patch. i believe the instructions are included in the patch.