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				Ultraman Ball
                             English to Japanese 
                                 Translation
                                   v. 0.99

                   


-------------------------- DEDICATION & INSPIRATION ---------------------------
 
This translation is dedicated to myself because I've never dedicated a hack to
myself and after the headaches this one gave me, I damn well deserve it!

I was listening to the Wo Hu Cang Long soundtrack while hacking this game. It
did much to soothe the massive headaches brought on while hacking the title
screen. Only one of the songs has lyrics and they suck, so I'll include a quote
from the movie instead.

	I've already wasted my whole life.
	I want to tell you with my last breath
	that I have always loved you. I would
	rather be a ghost, drifting by your side
	as a condemned soul, than enter heaven
	without you. Because of your love, I will
	never be a lonely spirit. 

	-Li Mu Bai "Wo Hu Cang Long"

------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------

    I. Dedication & Inspiration
   II. Table of Contents
  III. Introduction
   IV. Version History
    V. Distribution Notes
   VI. Technical Notes
  VII. Staff
 VIII. Tools
   IX. Patching Instructions (** READ THIS BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS!! **)
    X. Contact Information
   XI. Closing

--------------------------------- INTRODUCTION --------------------------------

Ultraman Ball is one of many Ultraman games that have appeared on various
systems. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only Ultraman game that
features the Ultraball form.
     For those that don't know, Ultraman is a popular television super hero in
Japan. (Live action, not anime.) I haven't seen any episodes of the series or
played any of the other games, so I can't say for sure if/how Ultraman Ball fits
in with everything else. It's a fun (albeit short) game, however, so please give
it a try.

-------------------------------- VERSION HISTORY -------------------------------

v. 0.99 - February 28, 2003

What's Complete
 - all in-game text translated
 - minor graphics hacks (title screen, swoosh!)
 
What's Incomplete
 - credits untranslated (See Technical Notes)
 - Super Gameboy border untranslated (See Technical Notes)

------------------------------ DISTRIBUTION NOTES ------------------------------

This Ultraman Ball translation should be distributed in a file named
uballe99.zip and should contain the following files:

	  uballe99.ips - the translation patch
 	  uballe99.txt - this readme file
	 uball-man.txt - a manual for the game

These files are (C)opyright 2003 by Suicidal Translations. All rights reserved.
You may distribute this translation in any manner you desire as long as the
original archive remains intact with no modifications and the archive is
distributed free of charge.

Ultraman Ball is (C)opyright 1994 by Bandai

------------------------------- TECHNICAL NOTES -------------------------------

While this game was perfectly playable in Japanese, I enjoyed it enough that I
wanted to translate it so as to give it a little recognition so that others
might give it a try. The intro, ending and end-of-level text is all accurate to
the best of my knowledge.

The full Japanese title is Urutouman Boru which translates into, of course,
Ultraman Ball. The title screen is a tad ugly but I got a severe headache on
two seperate occasions and couldn't bring myself to work on it even more. Yes,
the N need to be tilted a bit more, but I no longer care.

The Super Gameboy border isn't translated either. I attempted to do this. In
fact, I spent over 45 minutes just arranging the tiles in Tile Layer Pro so that
I could hack them. They were severely scrambled and it was a major pain to get
them all in order. Once I finally finished, I soon discovered that the border
is done in layers and I would have to spend another 45 minutes or more to
arrange the second layer if I wanted to actually hack the damn thing. As you can
see, I gave up. The ROM kicked my ass and I'm man enough to admit it.

As for the credits being untranslated, here is why. First, they use a different
font. Not a big deal, it's just a little lower than the original font. The font
was identical to the first, though, so I wasn't sure why they used it. After a
bit of hacking, I figured it out. It seems they used DTE for the credits.

Once again, this isn't that big a deal. It didn't take me long to figure out the
DTE values, build a table and dump the script. The thing is, while doing this, I
realized just how screwed up their system was. They did no optimization at all.
The DTE values appear just as they do in the game. The compression scheme
actually takes up more space than uncompressed text would have.

In short, I could probably translate the credits. I've located the DTE table and
could easily hack the DTE values, but it's not worth it to me. I'm unwilling to
spend an hour or more hacking text that has no effect on the game what-so-ever.
Since Takamichi translated the credits, however, I will include them here for
anyone who might be interested.

Graphics
Sahara Minako

Program
Murayama Toyoaki

Sound
Nishizawa Hiroshi
Minto

Marketing
Sekiwa Dai
Shiraishi Mieko

Special Thanks
Sakagami Akihiro
Okikito Nobuaki

Produced by
BEC

So there you have it. As far as I'm concerned, this translation is complete. I
have no desire to fix any of the things that some might consider a flaw. I quite
enjoy this game, even after beating it 4 or 5 times, and I don't want to kill
that enjoyment.

GoodGBx calls this ROM 'Ultraman Ball (SGB) (J) (!).gb'. Your best bet for
locating the ROM is to check a full GoodGBx archive, though you should import
the original cartridge from a shichiya (Japanese for pawn shop) for the sake of
legality.

------------------------------------ STAFF ------------------------------------

Hacking:
InVerse - http://www.pigtails.net/ST

Translating:
Takamichi - http://www.msxnet.org/gtinter/

Also thanks to Datenshi for translating the Swoosh! graphic via MO's board and
props to Dodgy Aussie from who's font archive I lifted the Ramparts font used
in the translation.

------------------------------------ TOOLS ------------------------------------

The following tools were used for this translation:

       Hexecute: hex editing
  Translhextion: relative searching
 Tile Layer Pro: graphics hacking & font insertion
           GiMP: title screen design
         IPS XP: patch creation
     
Most of these tools, as well as ROM hacking tutorials, can be downloaded from
The Repository (http://www.romhacking.com).

----------------------------- PATCHING INSTRUCTIONS ---------------------------

Patching a ROM is extremely simple. You need three things. A ROM, the patch and
a patching program. To patch with ips.exe, you simply type:

	ips <ROM name> <patch name>

So if your ROM was named uball.gb and the patch was named uballe99.ips you
would type:

	ips ultraball.gb uballe99.ips

Make sure you have the ROM, the patch and IPS in the same directory.	
	
To patch with SNES Tool, simply select USE IPS, choose the patch and then 
select the ROM to which you wish to apply the patch. It's self explanatory. If 
you can't figure it out, the game is probably too hard for you anywayz.

To patch with IPSWin, you simply select the ROM you want to patch, the patch
you wish to apply and then click Patch. Once again, if you can't figure it out,
the game is probably too hard for you.

------------------------------ CONTACT INFORMATION ----------------------------

 The official Ultraman Ball English translation home page is currently located
 at http://www.pigtails.net/ST

 E-Mail addresses concerning the project can be located on the official page.

 Do NOT, under ANY circumstances, ask for ROMs. You will not only be denied,
 you will have your request for illegal files forwarded to your ISP.
 
------------------------------------- CLOSING ----------------------------------

 So there you have it. Have fun and remember, it's just a game.

 -InVerse