Today we've released the English translation of Hinotori - Hououhen, now Firebird - The Phoenix Saga. Added to it some optional patches are released which can be applied to the original Japanese version as well.

Changes:

• Full translation of all texts in the game.
• Bigger text window to accomodate the larger English texts.
• Translation of title screen and end demo screens.
• Translation of special passwords.
• Tweaked built-in Game Master menu.
• Kanji icons are updated to more explanatory icons.
• Minor improvements in existing English texts such as the demonstration run texts.
• Increased the system requirement for MSX2 to 128 KB VRAM.

Optional patches:

• Turbo patch. The game will switch between screens faster and no slowdowns in crowded areas when running on MSXturboR machines.
• Force 60 Hz interrupt frequency as the game is supposed to run at that speed.
• Boss 4 tablet fix patch. The tablet you'll get when defeating Insane Demon will be correct instead of mainly white.
• The title screen will be restored when starting the game from the built-in Game Master menu.
• King Kong 2 SRAMdisk save patch. Will use the Game Master 2 SRAMdisk feature to save the game situation. Up to 8 saves are possible.

The translation patch comes with a manual which explains the newly designed icons.

It seems some people still love to flood blogs with spam comments. To reduce that, some measures were taken already. However, it seems that doesn't stop it completely. So thanks to them, open commenting has ceased as of this moment. Adding comments is still possible, they just won't be displayed immediately.

Thank you, lame spammers!

I've released an IPS patch GUI for 32bit Windows platforms. It uses an (embedded) temporary executable UIPS, which is also used by the ipsXP user interface, and extended to return error codes in addition to messages.

Compared to ipsXP some things have changed:

• The interface look is restored to neutral. It's fully controlled by the theme system.
• Filters for MSX filetypes are added. IPS patches weren't that common yet on MSX.
• Applying a list of IPS patches onto a target file in any given order is added.
• The target file can now be saved in a different location.

Filetypes can be added, modified and removed with the built in editor. There is a history for several inputs.

WinIPS is available in the tools directory in the archive of BiFi's Home Page.

Psycho World has 4 play modes you can cycle through when you press F4. It's undocumented but can give extra enjoyment. They are:

• Normal Mode
• Maxup Mode
• Power Mode
• Extra Mode

The game starts in Normal Mode.

Extra Mode is identical to Normal Mode, with the difference that it allows access to Talk Mode by pressing F5.
In Talk Mode conversations are started. Normal Mode has a few texts which are extended in Talk Mode.

Maxup Mode is a strange mode. It'll increase the H.P and ESP bars beyond the visible part. It will also decrease your protection against the environment. Your H.P will decrease much more, so be careful.

Power Mode is very much like a cheat mode. It'll activate the number keys on the keyboard (not the numeric pad) to restore H.P and ESP, or power up one of the ESP powers. The numbers are like:

7 2 6
5 1 3
8 4 9


0 = refill H.P and ESP
1 = power up Psy-Cannon
2 = power up Hydro Wave
3 = power up Burning-Bullet
4 = power up Cooling-Down
5 = power up Ultra-Sonic
6 = increase Levitation count
7 = increase Teleportation count
8 = increase Explorsion count
9 = increase Shield/Exchange count

Full playthroughs can be found in the Psycho World YouTube Playlist.

Today I released a new version of ROMLOAD. New in this version are:

• Fixed bug causing a file not found to be (unintended) generation of ROM image too large error
• Start ROM in SCREEN1 for compatibility
• Added support for DAC for 2 Konami titles. This is a requirement for Hai No Majutsushi
• Made the hotkey configurable

The DAC support includes playing the sample data through the PlaySoniq DAC. This is as an addition to the PSQTOOLS toolset for the PlaySoniq module I released last weekend. It currently contains PSQSET - a tool to configure the PlaySoniq module and DUALVDP - a tool to display the MSX1 screen on both the MSX VDP and Sega VDP. This tool is available here as a TNI product.