Making the ultimate version of Metroid Prime 1

[Paar]

Hi,

there's something that bothers me for some time - there isn't a perfect version of Metroid Prime 1. Not for English speaking people at least.

The downsides of all existing versions:

GC NTSC-U - obsolete log entries, missing gameplay stuff from other versions. Not so balanced.
GC PAL - missing 480p video mode.
GC NTSC-J - cumbersome support for English (you have to hack the game to get the game in English and even then the font is too large and some text will just overlap other parts of the screen).
Wii NTSC/PAL - for some the controls. Missing some graphical effects (particles of charge beam, ripples in water).

Now, I was thinking if it is possible to modify some version of the game so it contains all good things from the other versions. Myself, I prefer Gamecube version as I like the controls more and consider the PAL and NTSC-J versions as the most complete.

What would be easier?

1. Modify the PAL version so it supports 480p.
2. Modify the JAP version so it displays smaller font.

I tried to put font files from PAL version to JAP version, but it didn't work, all I got were some weird symbols that didn't make any sense.

Any ideas? It it even possible?

[Aruki]

For the font did you replace the textures the fonts use or did you only replace the FONT files? I'm not sure how they're different in the JP version.

[Paar]

I extracted the PAK files from the PAL version of the game and put all FONT files to Japanese version of the game. It was an experiment as I'm still learning how the game works internally.

How can I know which textures belong to FONT files?

Other thing I have tried is renaming the FONT strings in main.dol and default.dol files but I got only black screen when I tried to run the game.

[Aruki]

If you open the FONT file in a hex editor, the texture ID is the first thing after the font name string at the beginning of the file. For instance, in 9bb52e75.FONT, it's at 0x2D, and the texture is 9eb494af.TXTR.

[Paar]

Well, I have checked several font textures from the Japanese version and they look almost exactly the same as in the PAL version, size-wise. That led me to believe that if I wanted to make the text smaller, I would have to modify something else.

I may not be so easy as I thought it'd be.

[Paar]

So I tried to transfer all FONT files from PAL version to Japanese version along with the coresponding texture files. Still nothing, all I get are weird symbols. What's more important - the text, even though it's not readable, is still layed out on three lines when scaning items (it's on four lines in American and European versions). That means that replacing FONT files is meaningless. There has to be some information about size of the text in the executables. Unfortunately I have no idea how to find it.

[Aruki]

Have you tried NTSC 0-02 (the Player's Choice version)? It has most of the changes from the PAL version already.

[Parabox]

Wouldn't a translated New Play Control Metroid Prime be the best? No need to connect anything for additional content, just get the tokens, all the effects are in, and imo it has a more natural control scheme, although it's a bit more fault prone due to MP1 not being entirely optimized for it, and you want GC controls (maybe those could be hacked in?)

[Paar]

Have you tried NTSC 0-02 (the Player's Choice version)? It has most of the changes from the PAL version already.

There are many thing that weren't incorporated into the Player's Choice  0-02 version. Some enemies are tougher in the PAL version, there are modified cutscenes, voice overs, Ridley has additional move, there are changes to the HUD... There's a lot of things. It's better version overall.

Wouldn't a translated New Play Control Metroid Prime be the best? No need to connect anything for additional content, just get the tokens, all the effects are in, and imo it has a more natural control scheme, although it's a bit more fault prone due to MP1 not being entirely optimized for it, and you want GC controls (maybe those could be hacked in?)

If you mean Japanese version version of the Wii Metroid Prime 1 then it has the same problem as the GC version - English support is just bad. The text is too large and it often doesn't fit into the screen. It's breaking the immersion for me. Plus there should be some effects missing.

Video.

The perfect version would be PAL GC version with 480p support. The second best version would be NTSC-J GC version with smaller font. But neither of them exist.

[Paar]

I have partially good news. With the newest version of Nintendont (rev. 371) you can play the PAL version in 480p/60Hz! Why is that only partially good? Because it's not true 480p, it looks like it's 240p upscaled to 480p but even than the picture looks much better than 480i. I hope it will be possible to achieve true 480p someday.

[RealRed]

By incorporating changes from later versions, you cut sequence breakability from the original NTSC-U release.
Being the version I own and prefer to play, I consider the first release to be the best. Everything else is just additional crap.