Macross Skull Leader Complete Pack PC-98 Translation

Contents:

1. Foreword

2. Game description

3. Translation notes

4. Hacking notes

5. Disclaimer

6. Applying patches

7. Staff and special thanks

8. Contact
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1. Foreword

Hello everyone!

We present the translation patch for Macross: Skull Leader Complete Pack. This game is one of the best examples of a VN mixed with a strategy game, and it's based on a popular in Japan mecha series called Macross. This game in particular covers the movie "Do you remember love?", but it also takes some stuff from the anime series. It also does have some plot elements/characters of its own. 

2. Game description 

This game is in part a virtual novel, and in part a strategy game. You will need to navigate your way through the story sections in order to do battles. During the battles, you have many commands, such as formations (very important), different types of guns, cannons etc., and also the ground battles, as well as space battles. To win, you usually have to destroy all enemy units. Since there isn't much info on this game, some tips: 1. Don't worry about ammo, usually you have way more than necessary, and some weapons don't consume it at all. 2. To win, you need to combine air attacks with ground attacks. Always remember about transformations, they're essential to succeed. 3. Try to hit as many enemies as possible with airborne attacks, but beware - you may hit and destroy your own units! 4. Goals for various missions usually involve destroying every unit and/or reaching some unit on the map, but they may differ somewhat depending on a given scenario. Usually you can take your time, but some missions may require you to rush a bit, so be sure to take note of that. 5. Test out various options in the VN mode. There may be more than one plotline to unlock, depending on your actions...

3. Translation notes

The game is for the most part based on the series/movie. Many lines are taken directly from either of those, so the fans should feel right at home with this game.

(from Zenki)

This game is an interesting take on the plot of Macross. The core of the plot is based on the movie "Do You Remember Love?", as you can see from the designs of the pilot suits and the Zentradi; however, it uses the TV series to fill any hole that the movie doesn't show (for example, how the Macross leaves the planet). In order to mix the two versions together, the role of Minmay in the tv series is "taken" by one of the original characters in the game. This game is split into two stories: Hikaru (the main character of the original series and movie) and Kei (an original character made for this game). Hikaru's story has more chapters, and a route split that changes the story, making it more similar to the TV series in one version, and more similar to the movie in the other; Kei's story is shorter, but has a dating sim element, with different endings based on your choices. Personally I had fun translating this game (writing the Zentradi language in particular was very challenging), and I hope you have as much 
fun playing it!

4.Hacking notes 

(from Celcion)
As this game uses a scripted engine for all the scenes, the main objective was to interpret the engine codes and separate text-displaying control codes from everything else. It took a considerable amount of time to decipher everything with the debugger. It was more or less a standard type of VN-engine, but of course with its quirks. The hardest obstacle were the direct offsets in non-linear parts, so any script changes required recalculating all this pointers, as they obviously would point somewhere else, breaking the game in effect. Everything else about this game was pretty easy, including graphic's decompression, which used a pretty clear RLE encoding scheme.

(from Miralita)

In order to make the interpreter's work convenient, I came up with a scene scripting programme. It was written in C#. It supports parsing of the original game files, and editing script codes and compilations in the binary format. It is possible to search for both the original text, as well as the translation, in all the files. What is more, mass copying of files is also an option (for instance, names of various characters). Later on, to tune up dialogue display possibilities, code-changing option was added. It is responsible for script positioning and the dialogue box rendering in the programme. Transitional results of the work could thus be saved in the XML-file, which reached a rather significant size at the very end - around 10Mb. So as to synchronize the work results of various people better, XML-file version support function and newer data import function were added.

5. Disclaimer

This translation is a non-commercial and unofficial project which is in no way affiliated with the game creators or distributors. We don't own anything here and have no copyrights.

You can redistribute this translation freely as long as you don't ask money for it and include this readme.txt file with it. We don't condone any form of commercial redistribution. Please, keep that in mind.

6. Applying patches

System requirements:

	Windows 7/8/10 + .NET 4.6.1
	or
	Linux/Wine + current Mono release

How to apply the patch:

	1. Download and unpack the patcher.
	2. Download and put the unpacked image of the MS-DOS 6.2 installation disk from the Tools section in the unpacked patching folder.
	3. Run the patcher and make sure that the patch is selected (the game logo is shown at the top of the window) and the MS-DOS disk field is set to OK.
	4. Press the Source button and select the folder containing the game installation floppies.
	5. The patcher then checks whether the floppies contain the necessary files, and afterwards, assuming everything was done correctly, the Source field will either display the “OK” message, or specify which files are missing.
	6. If everything is done correctly, and no files are missing, the GO! Button will be activated. Clicking on it will be necessary to choose where to save the HDI file with the patched game.
	7. The created HDI-file is self-booting and does not require any further actions; it simply needs to be opened in the emulator (as the HDD image).

7. Staff (Nebulous Translations):

Celcion       - hacking

Miralita      - graphics and programming 

TheMajinZenki - lead translator 

cccmar        - initial testing/spot translation/script editing

Special thanks go to:

- guys from the PC-9800 Series Central Discord channel and forum  

- 46 OkuMen romhacking/translation team


8. Contact:

celcion - celcion@gmail.com

cccmar  - cccmar111@gmail.com

