New 3d Golf Simulation in English

Project Titles:
New 3D Golf Simulation – Pebble Beach Golf Links (English) (30,386 of 1,572,848 bytes changed)
New 3D Golf Simulation – Augusta National (English) (23,786 of 1,572,848 bytes changed)
New 3D Golf Simulation – Devil’s Course (English) (30,957 of 1,572,848 bytes changed)
New 3D Golf Simulation – Waialae Country Club (English) (32,014 of 1,572,848 bytes changed)
Project Dates: Jan 2023 to April 2023
Bytes Modified: Average of 30,000 of 1,572,848 bytes per game (2%)

Original Games:
New 3D Golf Simulation – Pebble Beach no Hatou (Japan, 1993)
New 3D Golf Simulation – Harukanaru Augusta (Japan, 1993)
New 3D Golf Simulation – Devil’s Course (Japan, 1994)
New 3D Golf Simulation – Waialae no Kiseki (Japan, 1994)
Platform: Sega’s 16-bit Mega Drive
Coding Language: 68K Assembly

Summary:  In Japan, T&E Soft launched four games in their “New 3D Golf series”, only Pebble Beach was released in the US.  Each game featured different courses, different play modes, and different features.  We set out to localize all 4 games by replacing the Japanese menus and dialog with English.  We also ensured every play mode and feature was made available across all 4 games, delivering a consistent and complete experience.

Some Techniques Used:

• Searching data with HEX Editors.
• Moving data bocks and pointing jump routines to new addresses.
• Porting and swapping code between games. 
• Translating Japanese to English.
• Locating and editing color palette data.
   

Completed game features:

• We documented every pointer in the games’ menu code, enabling us to replace data. Sections of code from the US release of Pebble Beach, was then imported into each of the four Japanese games, resulting in English menus and dialogues.
• The caddy dialog is unique to each game, we replaced the Japanese script with an English script.  The English was sourced from the Super Nintendo version of Waialae Country Club, the US release of Pebble Beach, and the other 2 we translated.
• We uncovered a hidden “Skin’s Game” option in Augusta Masters and made it accessible from the menu.
• We uncovered a hidden “build custom club sets” option in Pebble Beach, Devil’s Course, and Augusta Masters.
• We uncovered a hidden “reverse view when your ball lands” option in Pebble Beach and Augusta Masters.
• We uncovered a hidden “choose your starting tee” option in Pebble Beach, Devil’s Course, and Augusta Masters.
• We modified the swing’s power meter to move up then down, rather than going up and resetting to zero for all 4 games.
• We mathematically converted wind speed to display in MPH instead of meters for all 4 games.
• We enhanced the diversity of selectable characters by adding more skin color options.