Chrono Trigger: Chrono Trigger (US) Bugfix

If you’ve been annoyed by the spelling/grammar/logical bugs in Chrono Trigger (US) you will be happy to know that there’s a solution. Just use this Bugfix Patch, and you’re done.

Please be aware that this patch only fixes obvious errors (in the literal sense of the word) in the game. It does NOT reverse those changes made by the US translator. ‘Frog’ will remain ‘Frog’ and will not be changed to ‘Kaeru’, for example.

View the Readme for a full list of errors fixed.



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| CHRONO TRIGGER us BUGFIX PATCH September 23, 2005 |
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N.B. If you're reading this file using the Windows Editor, please maximize
the window and then activate the Word Wrap function in the "Edit" or "Format" menu!


HI FOLKS!
=========

All those of you who've always been annoyed about those nasty spelling/punctuation/consistency bugs in the well-known SNES game Chrono Trigger (us) will be delighted to learn that there's a remedy! Just use this Bugfix Patch, and you're done. If you can find even more bugs than are listed in here, please don't hesitate to let me know (my e-mail address can be found in the "Contact Me" section of this readme).
Please be aware that this patch only fixes obvious errors (in the literal sense of the word) in the game. It does NOT reverse the changes made by the US translator. That's why "Marle" remains "Marle" and a "Spincut" has been left a "Spincut".
Disclaimer (see also Legal Notes below): I have created this bugfix patch entirely out of my own free will and not on commission of Square (or now, Square Enix). It is therefore not official. Furthermore, I cannot be held responsible for any damage resulting from the use of this patch, including computer crashes, square eyes or virus infections. You accept this disclaimer by using the patch.


NEWS
====

- This section. Quite useful, I suppose.
- The topmost correction in the following section. Thanks fly out to Dean Cvjetanovic for pointing this little bug out to me.
- The topmost information in the section "What's Not". Thanks go out to Imzogelmo for bringing this to my attention. As always, any help with the problem is appreciated.
- Some minor corrections to the script.
- The links in the "Thank yous" section have been updated.


WHAT'S FIXED BY THIS PATCH:
===========================

- A sentence in the cathedral sequence, 600 AD, has been capitalized:
BEFORE: "It's almost my shift. / I hate pretending to be human... / it's so repulsive."
AFTER : "It's almost my shift. / I hate pretending to be human... / It's so repulsive."
- A sentence in the castle in 600 AD which doesn't make any sense if Marle's not in your party:
BEFORE: "But you're a dead ringer for her."
AFTER : "But that girl's a dead ringer for her."
- Another sentence in 600 AD's castle, which suffers from both a punctuation and a grammar problem:
BEFORE: "The Knight's quarters is downstairs."
AFTER : "The Knights' quarters are downstairs."
- The isolated "Got" in the future (it's "Found" everywhere else, except for if you literally get something from somebody):
BEFORE: "Got Blue Mail!"
AFTER : "Found Blue Mail!"
- A place name in a Porre (?) dialogue to make it correspond to the rest of the game:
BEFORE: "Have you heard about the magical cave?"
AFTER : "Have you heard about the Magic cave?"
- The grammatical error in one of the Medina dialogues:
BEFORE: "Long ago, the all mighty Magus brought forth the all-powerful Lavos."
AFTER : "Long ago, the almighty Magus brought forth the all-powerful Lavos."
- Another grammar bug in Medina:
BEFORE: "Those who do not possess magic will find it difficult sneak by."
AFTER : "Those who do not possess magic will find it difficult to sneak by."
- The confusing run-on sentence when asking Spekkio for magic for Robo:
BEFORE: "You've got great strength, however, since I cannot measure your inner character, I can't give any magic to you."
AFTER : "You've got great strength. However, since I cannot measure your inner character, I can't give any magic to you."
- The nonsense phrase before you take on the Dragon Tank. They forgot the preposition "on" ("on the floor"), and besides, if you play the scene several times, the document could even suddenly be lying on the table:
BEFORE: "A top secret document has been left behind the floor..."
AFTER : "A top secret document has been left behind here..."
- The wrong item name when you defeat Spekkio for the, like, fifth time:
BEFORE: "Got 10 Magical Tabs"
AFTER : "Got 10 Magic Tabs"
- A decapitalized phrase in Belthasar's explanations concerning Lavos:
BEFORE: "like a giant parasite, he is consuming our world."
AFTER : "Like a giant parasite, he is consuming our world."
- A wrongly spelt plural in the same explanations:
BEFORE: "But you are true heros."
AFTER : "But you are true heroes."
- The missing space in a Dalton phrase, to correspond to the actual enemy he's talking about:
BEFORE: "All right, this calls for the GolemBoss."
AFTER : "All right, this calls for the Golem Boss."
- The capitalization in a dialogue involving Dalton and Epoch:
BEFORE: "SOLDIER: Everything's A-okay, Sir Dalton!"
AFTER : "SOLDIER: Everything's a-okay, Sir Dalton!"
- The missing comma in a Belthasar phrase, as well as the name of a magician (to correspond to the Millenial Fair):
BEFORE: "The magician, Nolstein Bekkler could whip one up in the wink of an eye."
AFTER : "The magician, Norstein Bekkler, could whip one up in the wink of an eye."
- The capitalized word in a prehistoric dialogue:
BEFORE: "I Forget. No need for this stone, so I give to you."
AFTER : "I forget. No need for this stone, so I give to you."
- An awkward-looking Lucca "phrase":
BEFORE: "Lucca: A g, Gate?!"
AFTER : "Lucca: A g-g-Gate?"
- The missing "AD" in Toma's grave inscription:
BEFORE: "The Great Adventurer Toma Levine rests here... 3/6/634"
AFTER : "The Great Adventurer Toma Levine rests here... 3/6/634 AD"
- The grammar bug in a Melchior phrase:
BEFORE: "MELCHIOR: This is a very rare!"
AFTER : "MELCHIOR: This is very rare!"
- The apostrophe in a Frog phrase:
BEFORE: "Frog: Thou can'st not run!"
AFTER : "Frog: Thou canst not run!"
- The logical error in a Magus phrase (he's not talking about "his" present!):
BEFORE: "Let's get back to the present."
AFTER : "Let's get back to Crono's era."
(Since the player can enter a name at the beginning of the game, I of course put the name variable for "Crono" in there - just as in any other case which involves a name change.)
- The grammatical error in the 1000 AD chancellor/Rainbow Shell sidequest:
BEFORE: "Who's, you ask? King Guardia's, of course!"
AFTER : "Whose, you ask? King Guardia's, of course!"
- Another place name bug in the same sidequest (here, both the name is wrong and the apostrophe is misplaced):
BEFORE: "Pierre's, he's in the soldier's quarters."
AFTER : "Pierre's, he's in the Knights' quarters."
- The unnecessary comma in a Mother Brain phrase. The YOU in capital letters is enough to emphasize it:
BEFORE: "YOU, have emotions?!"
AFTER : "YOU have emotions?!"
- A capitalized word in a Marle phrase in the slideshow ending:
BEFORE: "Get Crazy!!!"
AFTER : "Get crazy!!!"
- The unnecessary hyphen in a Lucca phrase in the slideshow ending:
BEFORE: "Lucca: There's that stuffed-shirt, Cyrus!"
AFTER : "Lucca: There's that stuffed shirt, Cyrus!"
- The unnecessary space in a Crono phrase in the slideshow ending (once he says something, it's corrupted! What a mess!!!):
BEFORE: "Crono: How about into the 'now' ?!"
AFTER : "Crono: How about into the 'now'?!"
- The number of Chrono Trigger endings in the development room ending (it's twelve, counting all the variations):
BEFORE: "Yoshinori Kitase: Did you manage to get through all 10 different endings?"
AFTER : "Yoshinori Kitase: Did you manage to get through all 12 different endings?"
- A rejoicing phrase in the best ending, since it doesn't make much sense if you haven't revived Crono:
BEFORE: "Don't get me wrong, of course you are too."
AFTER : "Don't get me wrong, of course you all are."
- A severe speaker assignment issue in the best ending. I couldn't just switch the assignments around because the characters are acting and underlining their statements with gestures (have a look for yourself if you don't understand what I mean). Of course, it would be funnier to actually have Marle tell Lucca not to turn her brain off yet, but that, unfortunately, can't possibly be done:
BEFORE: "Marle: Go after them?! But the Gate's...
Marle: Lucca, don't turn off your brain, yet!
Lucca: I forgot! We have a Time Machine!"
AFTER : "Marle: Go after them?! But the Gate's...
Lucca: Marle, don't turn off your brain, yet!
Lucca: Behold! We have a Time Machine!"
- Several instances where speaker assignments don't occur in capital letters (e.g. "Woman", "Kino", "Dalton"), as well as one or two missing ("KINO") or inconsistent ("OLD MAN"/"ELDER", "HEADMAN"/"CHIEF") speaker assignments.
- Several instances where there are spaces between a number and a "G" (when talking about money). Since there's no space in the menu, after battles, and even in most of the dialogues, this is an issue of consistency.
- Dozens of missing or misplaced indentions and punctuation marks as well as wrong capitalizations. You'll find examples of these fixes listed above (like the Crono and Mother Brain ones), but there's heaps more!
- A special byte value which makes the ending where Crono and all the others are Reptites run automatically without you having to press the A button.
- The descriptions of two weapons. Now they correspond to the third one (which seems to be the correct one):
BEFORE: "1.5x hit for Mg enemies" and "2x hit for Mg enemies"
AFTER : "1.5x hit on Mg enemies" and "2x hit on Mg enemies"
- The descriptions of several accessories. Now they correspond to the status screen (when you're about to equip them):
BEFORE: "Strike" and "Vigor"
AFTER : "Hit" and "Stam." (meaning "Stamina")
- Some cursor names on the config screen:
BEFORE: "Save Skill/Item cursor?" and "Skill/Item Info."
AFTER : "Save Tech/Item cursor?" and "Tech/Item Info."
- An abbreviation on the config screen, looks a bit nicer now:
BEFORE: "Battle Mes. Speed"
AFTER : "Battle Msg. Speed"
- The ugly typo right in the opening credits (many thanks to Syne for the de-/compression tool!):
BEFORE: "DIRECTER"
AFTER : "DIRECTOR"
- The character shadows in the menu font (many were missing).
- The character shadows on the time selection screen (if you press Y while in Epoch). They were horribly inconsistent.
- The way "CHRONO TRIGGER" is displayed in the copyright message at the very beginning of the game (thanks to Neo Mithrandil for the offset and palette of this graphics!).
- The internal ROM name is changed to "CT BUGFIX EDITION" (as a bonus, basically).


WHAT'S NOT:
===========

Well, don't be annoyed, but there are a couple of things that can't just be fixed (or may look like errors but aren't). I'm aware of the following stuff, but unfortunately, I have to leave them unchanged for the time being.
- The items you obtain from Rx-xR after racing against Johnny in the future (Jet Bike Race) don't seem to correspond to what the robot tells you. Have a look at the list in http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/chrono_trigger_i.txt, which says that there are two bugs in the script (1300+ and 2300+ points). According to my research, though, the 2300+ points bug is a myth. Could anybody test this out and see what Rx-xR says and what you actually get when acquiring 1300+ and 2300+ points respectively?
- The missing indentions in the character's talks when confronting Lavos for the second time (when they realize what he was actually doing while sleeping deep inside the Earth). There's not enough space to put them in.
- Ayla's phrase in the Northern ruins, 1000 AD: "Ayla: It's like rock!" (offset 0x389375). The thing is, this text may pop up even if you don't actually have Ayla in your party. Just changing the pointer doesn't solve the problem either way. Simply changing the speaker assignment to a "person in your party" ($1B for the first, $1C for the second, or $1D for the third person) doesn't help either because of their individual styles of speech (that's why on the Blackbird, this kind of speaker assignment ist only used for utterances with zero semantic contents, such as "?" or "!").
- The "Hero Badge" Frog is talking about (0x39C8DB), as opposed to the "Badge of Courage" Cyrus mentions (0x18D46D). Is this one and the same thing at all? If it is, we're in trouble because there's not enough space to change the first one into the second.
- The weird phrase "That shore were an ugly frog!" This is a special sort of colloquial which can be heard in the southern part of the US. Thanks fly out to Beaux and Sapiens for pointing this out and confirming my assumption! :)
- The strange behavior of the shadows of the dialogue font. Sometimes, two kinds of shadows can be seen - the normal one and some glowing isolated pixels around the characters. But sometimes, on the other hand, only the "normal" shadow shows up. I have no idea whether there's a rule when the second shadow appears or whether it's simply a programming bug and it's supposed to be there all the time. For the menu font, I haven't encountered the problem (here, both shadows are always visible, as far as I have tested it). I don't think simply removing the second shadow from the font is a good solution, since it affects the achievement of the creators of Chrono Trigger too much. Can anybody help?


HOW TO USE IPS-PATCHES
======================

IPS files do not contain the game ROM but the changes someone has made in it, which means you need the original Chrono rigger US ROM (please consider the legal notes at the end of this file). When applied to it, this patch corrects the bugs listed above. A tool able to apply IPS patches can be downloaded from Zophar's Domain (www.zophar.net) or FuSoYa's Niche (fusoya.idz.net or fusoya.cg-games.net). I recommend using Lunar IPS. It's easy to use and works great.
In case your emulator is ZSNES or Snes9x (v1.35 or later), you don't actually have to patch your ROM. Just rename the IPS file so that everything before the dot matches the ROM file name (e. g. CHRONO.IPS if your ROM file name is CHRONO.SMC) and put it in the same folder as your ROM (or your SRAM files, in case you specified an SRAM folder in ZSNES). Both these emulators patch the ROM in realtime in your computer's RAM without actually changing the ROM file. The advantage of this is that you don't have to patch a fresh ROM when an update of my patch is released - just replace the IPS file and everything's fine.

If you have the same ROM as I do, then the checksum should remain OK, and the CRC32 the emu tells you should be 796B9B22. Remember the ROM has to be the US version--don't use the Japanese Chrono Trigger by accident--and it should be in Super MagiCom format (file extension .SMC). A Super WildCard ROM (.SMC) should work fine, too, but a ProFighter (.FIG) or a GameDoctor (.078 or other numbers) ROM can wreak havoc on your bugfixed gaming experience. Passages could remain uncorrected, or the emulator could crash. Oh yeah, and please **use a fresh, unchanged ROM**!!! Don't re-patch an already patched ROM (unless you know the two patches don't affect the same offsets or you've explicitly been told to do so!). You can't go wrong with ZSNES and Snes9x and the IPS replacing trick, though.
In case you'd have to convert between different ROM formats, please use inSNESt, which can be found on Zophar's as well. Please note that even though a ROM might look as though it was in Super MagiCom format from its extension, it could be just pretending. I recommend using inSNESt to verify. Please convert your ROM FIRST (if necessary at all), THEN patch it.


CONTACT ME
==========

If you like this patch, please e-mail me! If not, mail me anyway! I'm always happy to receive comments, suggestions and other notes. Only with YOUR help can I make the patch still better, and I'm open to any comment! If you'd like to convey a "Thank You" without saying much, have a look at the following page, where there's much chance to do so, and I'd greatly appreciate it:

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| http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/wishlist/1C4XUWQN1EM1W/ref=wl_em_to |
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I really like e-mail. I do NOT, however, like insults, viruses, or queries on where to find ROMs. You'd not be the first person to send me stuff like that! I usually dump these things in the trash, but if I'm in a particularly bad mood, I forward them to the respective authorities. If you'd like to contact me via ICQ, please send me a message before asking for an authorization to put me on your contact list.

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| My e-mail address : kayen@manuloewe.de |
| My ICQ # : 66976723 |
| My website : http://www.manuloewe.de/kayen.htm |
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Feel free to visit my site every now and again, despite the fact that it is written in German. I'm sure you'll find the stuff you want, and there might be sudden updates.


THANK YOUS
==========

- Syne (http://www.syne.de/) for a handy utility which allows you to de-/compress the credits! Big thanks to you, mate! :)
- Neo Mithrandil from Terminus Traduction (http://terminus.romhack.net/) for the offset and palette of the copyright graphics. Thanks heaps!
- SinaP for SnesEdit (http://www.snesedit.de.vu/) and valuable help he's been providing for years!
- FuSoYa (http://fusoya.panicus.org/) for Lunar IPS and Lunar Compress as well as a brilliant Enhancement Patch for Secret of Mana!
- Sapiens and Beaux for some good suggestions
- ZSKnight, _Demo_ and Pharos for ZSNES
- SquareSoft for awesome RPGs
- Peter Terrell, Veronika Schnorr, Wendy V.A. Morris, and Roland Breitsprecher for their tremendously useful "PONS/Collins Grosswoerterbuch fuer Experten und Universitaet" (Neubearbeitung 1999, Ernst Klett Verlag)
- The University of Auckland, New Zealand, for providing the OED as an online resource!


LEGAL NOTES
===========

This bugfix patch for Chrono Trigger us is entirely copyrighted ? 2003-2005 by "ManuLoewe" Manuel Charisius. The patch is not endorsed or licensed by Squaresoft/Square Enix or Nintendo of America. The patch is provided "as is", without any warranty. By using it, you agree to use it completely at your own risk. The author cannot be held responsible for any damage, virus infections or square eyes resulting from the use of this patch.
It is freeware, meaning it may be copied, given away etc. as long as the files listed below remain together. You are not allowed to give away the isolated patch or text file(s). It is illegal to distribute this patch along with or applied onto a Chrono Trigger ROM. Moreover, it is not allowed to alter the ZIP archive, the patch itself, or the text files in any way.
Furthermore, it is strictly prohibited to give away this freeware patch for money, goods, or services. Do NOT apply this patch onto a Chrono Trigger ROM with the intention to burn it onto an EPROM, build a cartridge, and sell it (e. g. using eBay)!

The ZIP archive must contain the following files:

CTFIX050923.IPS (the patch, updated September 23, 2005)
CT BUGFIX DT.TXT (German readme file)
CT BUGFIX ENG.TXT (this file)

"Chrono Trigger"(R) and all related stuff is a registered trademark of Square Co., Ltd. (nowadays Square Enix Co.). "Nintendo"(R), "Super Nintendo"(TM) etc. are registered trademarks of Nintendo of Japan/America/Europe.
Furthermore, neither the presence or absence of the designation of any registered trademark in any of my texts should be regarded as affecting the legal status of this trademark.

ATTENTION!!! If you do not own the original "Chrono Trigger" game cartridge, then you are (in many countries) not allowed to keep a backup copy or a ROM image of this game. The so-called 24-hour-rule is an invented nonsense without any legal background to support it.

************************* Please note ***************************
QUESTIONS CONCERNING ROMs ARE ILLEGAL AND WILL BE IGNORED !!!
************************* Please note ***************************

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| ? 2003-2005 by ManuLoewe | http://www.manuloewe.de/kayen.htm |
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Bank: HiROM
Country: USA
Interleaved: NO
Internal ROM Checksum: 0x788C
Game Revision: 1.0
ROM Size: 32 Megabytes
ROM Speed: 120ns (FastROM)
SRAM: YES, Internal, 64 Kilobytes
---------------
Checksums
---------------
Chrono Trigger (U) [!].sfc
Verified Good Dump
CRC32: 2D206BF7
MD5: A2BC447961E52FD2227BAED164F729DC
RIPEMD-160: C1DC528AA21D9E3F00E7571A98AF0BB4B6598564
SHA-1: DE5822F4F2F7A55ACB8926D4C0EAA63D5D989312
SHA-256: 06D1C2B06B716052C5596AAA0C2E5632A027FEE1A9A28439E509F813C30829A9