SFIII Translation Project: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

The ol' Catacombs bug...

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Cullsoft
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Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

I finished the Catacombs area of Sc1 yesterday, and thought I'd uncovered a bug when Synbios suddenly started speaking (see screenshot attached).

Then I realised it's been so long since I reached this far in SF3 that I'd completely forgotten about the Catacombs bug, where the conversations with the Aspia Castle guards and Fynnding seem to have nudged everyone's portrait or speech bubble forward or back a space. :p

Has there been any progress on fixing this bug? Is this something that looks fixable (e.g. by adjusting portrait indexes or changing speech bubble contents), or is it one of those things that can't be modified (yet)?

I'm using v15 of the patch, which is a couple of years old so might be out of date (it was the current patch when I started this playthrough of Sc1 - I'll be switching to the latest once I'm ready for Sc2).
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

Yes, it has been fixed.

You should re-patch Sc1 with V18 asap, there have been a lot of fixes and improvements at the end of Sc1 since V15.

I would suggest revisiting the Catacombs battle (and forward) after patching, that's where the magic happened.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

That's excellent news - thanks to all who got that bug fixed. :)

Fortunately I made a backup save file at the start of the Catacombs battle - I needed to clear some inventory space on my tomb raiding team, but wasn't sure if egressing would break the ruins even if the thief hadn't entered yet.

Redoing the battle will be a pain, as it went really well on the whole (plus Grace got a solid level up), but maybe this time I can stop Basanda from blocking that bridge!
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

You don't need to keep the re-do as canon... Just load it up for the updated start and end dialog. There may be a bit in the middle too. Then resume your canon save.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

Oh dear. Just replayed the battle using the v18 patch, and the bug still seems to be happening. :( Synbios still says the line in the screengrab attached to the original post, and the two conversations with the Aspia guards and Fynnding remain out of sync.

A few trails of thoughts on why the bug may still be happening...

- Could this be to do with reusing a save file that had already started the Catacombs battle (i.e. data for the coming conversations could have already been loaded and locked), rather than from before enterring the Catacombs?

- Has this been verified as fixed when using a save file from an earlier patch?

- Has this been verified as fixed in both the UK and US versions of Sc1?
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

The dialog isn't stored in the save and the version the save was made should have no bearing. I'm not sure about the UK element. It seems like that was an issue on another occasion with this particular mix up.

Assuming you are emulating, I would try unmounting, deleting the SF3Track2.bin and running the patch again.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

I am playing by emulator (sadly my Saturn seems to have stopped reading discs at all :( ), but I am patching an original Sc1 UK disc.

It's quite likely that when I applied the v18 patch while I had still had the v15 ISO mounted (including the Track2 file), which may have caused issues. I've unmounted and deleted that the v15 and broken v18 patched ISOs, so there shouldn't be any mounted discs to interfere.

Are there any recommendations on whether I should use ISOMaker 2 or SF3TranslationPatcher for best results? I'm running Windows 7, so the Windows 10 issues shouldn't affect me.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

Yes, you must unmount prior to patching.

If you have a real disc in a drive then the new patcher will be your best bet since it offers the view mod (which provides an additional few lines of resolution). It's easier to use as well.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

Oh dear. I tried patching it with v18 again, having made sure the previous patched ISOs were unmounted and, if necessary, deleted. Repatched it using the patcher (tried it out with the extra lines switched on, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious change in resolution to me), mounted it and checked that it was running v18 on the title screen. Replayed the Catacombs battle... Synbios still says that same line. :(

I'm really not sure what's going on that's still causing it not to work for me, but for the sake of sanity and getting on with the game I'm going to call this bug a loss for me and continue from my main save (after the battle).

Oh, in case it helps with troubleshooting I've been playing on SSF v0.09 alpha R4 (chances are a newer version is out, but this is the version I've had for a while and works fine, despite slightly slow BGMs and some graphical glitches (like Invisible Thanatos)).
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by knight0fdragon »

can you upload your savefile
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

Sure thing. I'm not sure where I saved that file to (think I put it on the internal memory for some reason), so I've put both the internal and external RAM files into the attached zip.

There's probably a lot of save files there, as I wanted to make lots of reference points for story plans, but the Catacombs battle should be second from the top of the list (the top file being my latest main save).
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

Using your save, the dialogs after the battle with the guards and with Fynnding work perfectly for me. (It doesn't matter where you save btw, so I've attached the save at the end of the battle)

I'm going to assume this has something to do with patching the UK version. I believe there was another person who continued to have this happen and they were patching a UK version. I'm not sure why there would be a difference. :p
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

Possibly a British thing. Maybe one of the guards made Synbios spill his afternoon tea, causing him to break his vow of silence with an outburst of infuriated but politely spoken exclamations. :shifty: Or they're all doing a tribute to the Two Ronnies sketch where Ronnie Corbett wins Mastermind by answering the question before last.
https://youtu.be/y0C59pI_ypQ

Remind me - did this bug happen in the original US version? I've never played that version, and can't remember if others had reported it happening there.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

It did happen in the US version, but the cause was elusive.

I have always assumed it was due to either file size or a bad compress (which could happen from time to time with the original compressor). However, it continues to happen with the UK version even with the new compressor.

Can you tell me the file size of the X5INKA.bin file on the original UK disc? If it is smaller than the US version, we may have an answer.

You can also try replacing it with the attached INKA file and see if that does it.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

Here the file size details for my Sc1 UK's X5INKA.bin file, according to Windows Explorer:

- Size: 36.6KB (37544 bytes)
- Size on disk: 38.0KB (38912 bytes)

In case it's any use for further analysis, I've attached a copy of the file.

If I get the chance, I'll have a go with ripping the disc and rebuilding the ISO with the new file. It's been quite a while since I've done any manual ISO ripping and burning, so I'll have to see how it goes.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

If that one doesn't work, try this one. The first one is slightly larger than the original and this one is slightly smaller, so if it is a size issue, this should fix it.

Just replace the file in the patch s1 directory and re-run the patch.
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by Cullsoft »

Okay, I have good news... and bad news.

Good news: After replacing the X5INKA file and repatching the game, the conversations with the Aspia guards and Fynnding now appear to be fixed! :D Only oddity with them is that they refer to the monster as Collossus, whilst in the other patches it was renamed to Titan.

Bad news: Now the prior conversation with Basanda is all messed up! This led to some rather amusing lines, of which I've provided a couple of screengrabs; they may be rearranged out of chronological order, but Basanda and Dantares have rather awkward reactions to Synbios's sudden religious conversion. :lol:
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Re: Yegads! Synbios speaks!

Post by legalize freedom »

I'm guessing you replaced the file with the original PAL file to get that result. The idea was to replace it with the one I attached.

At any rate, I'll PM you and get you fixed up.
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