Dear Arcade-Projects Community,
Following some comprehensive exploration into 68000 pointer array modification, custom hardware tile-mapping, and Capcom's native 15-bit color palette configurations, I want to formally launch a unified community project: The Ultimate CPS2 Restoration, Localization & Asset Overhaul Suite, delivered entirely via modular .ips patch files.
The primary objective of this project is to avoid generic territory region-byte flips—which alter native gameplay mechanics, damage calculations, and input-buffering registers. Instead, we want to construct precise, modular .ips patch sets for definitive Japanese parent ROMs that inject official modern translation scripts, unlock uncompressed audio data tracks, fix visual/cosmetic anomalies, and overhaul character color indices to match modern restorations like the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection and Capcom Fighting Collection 2 [2.26934/].
Below is the highly detailed technical roadmap split by game engine architecture:
1. Alpha / Zero Engine Modules
Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (sfz2al.zip - Arcade "Gold" Base):
Cammy CPS2 Q-Sound Restoration: Integrate Cammy's unique theme utilizing native CPS2 Q-Sound sequencing (back-ported via audio vectors from Zero 2 Dash or uncompressed internal Capcom sound tables).
Evil Ryu Ending Localization: Replace the blank text blocks with a direct, localized translation of Evil Ryu's true Japanese ending script.
Street Fighter Zero 3 (sfz3j.zip / The Upper Down-Port & Graphical Asset Fixes):
The Sega NAOMI "Upper" Character Roster Conversion: We want to map out a down-port or memory expansion that injects the 10 exclusive console/Sega NAOMI Zero 3 Upper roster additions (Balrog [Boxer], Juli, Juni, Dee Jay, Evil Ryu, Fei Long, T. Hawk, Guile, Shin Akuma [Shin Gouki], and Shin M. Bison [Shin Vega]) directly into the CPS2 framework.
Capcom Fighting Collection 2 Balance & UI Fixes:
CFC2 Competitive Balrog/Upper Balance Adjustments: Adapt the updated tournament balance values, frame tweaks, and damage scaling adjustments established in the Capcom Fighting Collection 2 runtime layout.
Unified Character Select & Versus Screen Evil Ryu Portraits: Fix the programmatic lookup bugs present in standard down-ports where Evil Ryu mistakenly pulls vanilla Ryu's graphical assets. The engine must check the variation flag to correctly render Evil Ryu's distinct, corrupted pixel art profile icon on both the Character Select grid and the pre-match Versus Screen.
T. Hawk Walking Stance Fix: Fix the frame index allocation loop for T. Hawk's walking stance, correcting the sprite boundary offset so his movement frames cycle safely without jittering or clipping errors.
Unified CPS2-Style Character Intro Stories & Pixel Art Close-Ups: To ensure complete visual consistency across the down-ported engine, the patch must replace the generic, barebones CPS2 stone-wall breakthrough sequence entirely. The initialization routine must be reprogrammed so that ALL characters on the roster utilize screen-filling cinematic text crawls and dramatic, native CPS2-style 16-color pixel art camera close-up panels (down-sampling the high-res NAOMI layout assets into the classic CPS2 arcade aesthetic for Balrog, Juli, Juni, Dee Jay, Guile, T. Hawk, Fei Long, Evil Ryu, Shin Akuma, and Shin M. Bison). All translated dialogue text arrays must load cleanly in English.
NAOMI Custom Stage Porting: Extract and down-sample the 8 background stage layers exclusive to the console/NAOMI expansions to fit Capcom’s CPS2 CHR-ROM limits, allocating proper parallax tile maps and custom stage-ID registers for:
Balrog [Boxer]: Las Vegas Neon Street (Forced deep, dark night skies to match Sega NAOMI presentation rather than vanilla CPS2 sub-boss variants).
Dee Jay: Jamaica Beach Party
Fei Long: Hong Kong Tiger Balm Garden / Film Set
T. Hawk: Mexico Canyon / Jalisco Plateau
Guile: Nevada USA Air Force Base / Fighter Jet Stratum
Evil Ryu: Cave of Despair / Scorched Wasteland
Shin Akuma [Shin Gouki]: Volcanic Cavern / Deep Grotto
Karin: Kanzuki Luxury Liner / Cruise Ship Deck (Sega NAOMI Variant)
Stage 10 Progressive Logic Fix (Blanka, Rolento, R. Mika, Dan): When entering Stage 10 using Blanka, Rolento, Rainbow Mika, or Dan, the game engine branches to a programmatic confrontation against Balrog [Boxer] as their assigned sub-boss. The encounter must cleanly execute the classic Capcom Black/Charcoal Stormy Skies layout variant with its flashing storm physics, distinguishing this dramatic late-game milestone from his standard standalone Stage 1-9 dark midnight-sky arena [2.26934/].
Chun-Li & Sodom X-Ism & Expanded Palette Overhaul: Patch the palette allocation matrices for Chun-Li and Sodom to cleanly force their classic X-Ism visual configurations (Chun-Li's legacy Street Fighter II outfit and Sodom's distinct combat gears). Furthermore, expand their color register space to allow access to the extra alternate color palettes featured across console and modern collection releases.
Rainbow Mika Ending Restoration: Fully repair and align Rainbow Mika's complete illustrated ending sequence to match the Sega NAOMI and console layouts. This patch will cleanly parse her story dialogues completely in English and fix the cinematic layer transitions during her interactions with the collapsing Psycho Drive and Zangief's rescue scene.
Sakura Ending Visual Fix: Restore and properly align the transition layers and character graphics during Sakura's ending sequence, specifically fixing the emotional cinematic frame where Ryu leaves and walks away into the sunset, with all text translated to English.
Vega (Claw) Ending Restoration & Fix: Restore and properly translate the complete dialogue script for Vega's ending sequence into English, specifically fixing the narrative cinematic frames depicting Vega rescuing Cammy and getting her safely out of the collapsing Shadaloo Psycho Drive chamber.
Gen Ending Visual Correction: Fix the sprite palette indices during Gen's ending cutscene to correctly render Akuma (Gouki) with his accurate glowing red hair and the iconic red "Ten" (Heaven) Kanji emblazoned on his back, accompanied by English translation tables.
Akuma (Gouki) Standalone Ending Visual Correction: Ensure Akuma's victory portrait in his own ending sequence is similarly patched to show his proper red hair and red "Ten" mark configuration, with full English text.
E. Honda Native Ending Restoration: Localize and restore E. Honda's full illustrated ending sequence into English, specifically fixing the narrative scene to depict E. Honda training with two Julis and Juni right in E. Honda's native stage environment.
Dhalsim Ending Visual Fix: Restore and correctly align the unique victory portrait of Lifesize Dhalsim at the end of his path, rendering inside Dhalsim's stage for his proper ending sequence with localized English script.
Adon Ending Visual Fix: Map and restore the victory portrait of Adon at the end of his path inside Adon's stage, completely fixing the background layer glitches found in older distributions and adding clean English typography.
2. Marvel / Versus Engine Modules & Palette Hacks
The core focus here is extracting the localized script files, color palette properties, and quality-of-life menu frameworks from modern collection ports, restoring character aesthetics directly to physical B-board EPROM layouts [2.26934/].
X-Men: Children of the Atom (xmcotaj.zip):
Script & Interface Port: Port the updated script variables and clean English UI elements natively into the Japanese parent.
Juggernaut & Magneto Palette Restoration: Apply hex edits to enable custom sprite color maps and expand color select inputs for Juggernaut and Magneto, bringing full color selection options to these characters.
Marvel Super Heroes (mshj.zip):
True Boss Colors & Story Endings Fix: Overwrite the baseline palette registers to grant playable Dr. Doom and Thanos their true, visually accurate arcade boss colors rather than altered player color mappings. Additionally, repair the layout logic pointers in the Japanese parent to cleanly execute and loop their true individual narrative ending text sequences translated completely into English without buffer crashes or graphic freeze glitches.
X-Men vs. Street Fighter (xmvsfj.zip):
Apocalypse Localized Dialogue Integration: The original Japanese arcade version features completely unique, character-specific pre-battle text dialogue interactions between every single individual character and the boss, Apocalypse. This patch will inject 68000 pointer vectors to map accurate English translations over these text boxes, fully restoring a localized version of this exclusive dialogue engine.
Expanded Color Allocations: Inject assembly hacks into the character select grid to bypass the traditional 2-color palette limits, enabling full, unrestricted alternate-color select behavior for the entire roster.
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (mshvsfj.zip):
Playable Bosses, True Endings & Custom Palettes: Keep Norimaro fully available on the grid while mapping standard text parameters to load the internal English script assets. Additionally, implement an assembly hack to make Apocalypse and Cyber Akuma natively selectable characters on the character select screen. This includes repairing the ending pointers to allow both bosses to trigger proper, un-glitched individual story endings translated cleanly into English, alongside expanded multi-color select palette sheets for both characters.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (mvscj.zip):
Morrigan Victory Pose Restoration: Re-route graphic layer calls to restore Morrigan's original Japanese-exclusive victory pose featuring Lilith. This censored asset (Morrigan summoning Lilith to join her in a specialized victory state) will be seamlessly patched to execute correctly on physical arcade systems.
On-Screen Language & Palette Matrix: Localize narrative text and win quotes into English while retaining original Japanese character layout names and adding expanded character coloring options.
Hardware Requirements & Implementation Rules
To ensure these modifications operate flawlessly on both digital setups and original physical arcade B-boards via standard IPS patchers, all assembly additions must comply with Capcom’s architecture requirements:
Boundary Word Alignment: Injected text, graphics blocks, or character lookup tables must maintain strict word bounds (even-byte offset structures) to prevent fatal 68000 address exceptions on real hardware.
Capcom Core Terminators: The string scanning logic must explicitly employ $FF control codes to break dialogue arrays and $00 flags to return control to graphic v-blank loop timers.
Competitive Parity: Hitbox states, input-buffering registers, gray-damage curves, and native attack-recovery tables must remain 100% unaltered.
THREAD COOPERATION & MODERATION GUIDELINES
1. Zero Tolerance No-ROM Policy: Do not share, post, or link to pre-patched Capcom ROM sets, console disc ISO files, or game-extraction file directories. All community creations must be compiled and shared strictly as standard IPS patch files (.ips).
2. Unified Workbench Reference: All core hex research must target decrypted parent sets to ensure the target memory offsets remain synchronized between separate contributors.
I am prepared to manage the script extraction formatting, sorting, and dialogue cleanup using the collection files. If you have experience navigating CPS2 sprite index matrices, hacking 68000 assembly, or generating stable IPS matrices for retro platforms, your expertise is highly welcome!
Thanks for looking,
Jonny Modlin
Following some comprehensive exploration into 68000 pointer array modification, custom hardware tile-mapping, and Capcom's native 15-bit color palette configurations, I want to formally launch a unified community project: The Ultimate CPS2 Restoration, Localization & Asset Overhaul Suite, delivered entirely via modular .ips patch files.
The primary objective of this project is to avoid generic territory region-byte flips—which alter native gameplay mechanics, damage calculations, and input-buffering registers. Instead, we want to construct precise, modular .ips patch sets for definitive Japanese parent ROMs that inject official modern translation scripts, unlock uncompressed audio data tracks, fix visual/cosmetic anomalies, and overhaul character color indices to match modern restorations like the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection and Capcom Fighting Collection 2 [2.26934/].
Below is the highly detailed technical roadmap split by game engine architecture:
1. Alpha / Zero Engine ModulesStreet Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (sfz2al.zip - Arcade "Gold" Base):
Cammy CPS2 Q-Sound Restoration: Integrate Cammy's unique theme utilizing native CPS2 Q-Sound sequencing (back-ported via audio vectors from Zero 2 Dash or uncompressed internal Capcom sound tables).
Evil Ryu Ending Localization: Replace the blank text blocks with a direct, localized translation of Evil Ryu's true Japanese ending script.
Street Fighter Zero 3 (sfz3j.zip / The Upper Down-Port & Graphical Asset Fixes):
The Sega NAOMI "Upper" Character Roster Conversion: We want to map out a down-port or memory expansion that injects the 10 exclusive console/Sega NAOMI Zero 3 Upper roster additions (Balrog [Boxer], Juli, Juni, Dee Jay, Evil Ryu, Fei Long, T. Hawk, Guile, Shin Akuma [Shin Gouki], and Shin M. Bison [Shin Vega]) directly into the CPS2 framework.
Capcom Fighting Collection 2 Balance & UI Fixes:
CFC2 Competitive Balrog/Upper Balance Adjustments: Adapt the updated tournament balance values, frame tweaks, and damage scaling adjustments established in the Capcom Fighting Collection 2 runtime layout.
Unified Character Select & Versus Screen Evil Ryu Portraits: Fix the programmatic lookup bugs present in standard down-ports where Evil Ryu mistakenly pulls vanilla Ryu's graphical assets. The engine must check the variation flag to correctly render Evil Ryu's distinct, corrupted pixel art profile icon on both the Character Select grid and the pre-match Versus Screen.
T. Hawk Walking Stance Fix: Fix the frame index allocation loop for T. Hawk's walking stance, correcting the sprite boundary offset so his movement frames cycle safely without jittering or clipping errors.
Unified CPS2-Style Character Intro Stories & Pixel Art Close-Ups: To ensure complete visual consistency across the down-ported engine, the patch must replace the generic, barebones CPS2 stone-wall breakthrough sequence entirely. The initialization routine must be reprogrammed so that ALL characters on the roster utilize screen-filling cinematic text crawls and dramatic, native CPS2-style 16-color pixel art camera close-up panels (down-sampling the high-res NAOMI layout assets into the classic CPS2 arcade aesthetic for Balrog, Juli, Juni, Dee Jay, Guile, T. Hawk, Fei Long, Evil Ryu, Shin Akuma, and Shin M. Bison). All translated dialogue text arrays must load cleanly in English.
NAOMI Custom Stage Porting: Extract and down-sample the 8 background stage layers exclusive to the console/NAOMI expansions to fit Capcom’s CPS2 CHR-ROM limits, allocating proper parallax tile maps and custom stage-ID registers for:
Balrog [Boxer]: Las Vegas Neon Street (Forced deep, dark night skies to match Sega NAOMI presentation rather than vanilla CPS2 sub-boss variants).
Dee Jay: Jamaica Beach Party
Fei Long: Hong Kong Tiger Balm Garden / Film Set
T. Hawk: Mexico Canyon / Jalisco Plateau
Guile: Nevada USA Air Force Base / Fighter Jet Stratum
Evil Ryu: Cave of Despair / Scorched Wasteland
Shin Akuma [Shin Gouki]: Volcanic Cavern / Deep Grotto
Karin: Kanzuki Luxury Liner / Cruise Ship Deck (Sega NAOMI Variant)
Stage 10 Progressive Logic Fix (Blanka, Rolento, R. Mika, Dan): When entering Stage 10 using Blanka, Rolento, Rainbow Mika, or Dan, the game engine branches to a programmatic confrontation against Balrog [Boxer] as their assigned sub-boss. The encounter must cleanly execute the classic Capcom Black/Charcoal Stormy Skies layout variant with its flashing storm physics, distinguishing this dramatic late-game milestone from his standard standalone Stage 1-9 dark midnight-sky arena [2.26934/].
Chun-Li & Sodom X-Ism & Expanded Palette Overhaul: Patch the palette allocation matrices for Chun-Li and Sodom to cleanly force their classic X-Ism visual configurations (Chun-Li's legacy Street Fighter II outfit and Sodom's distinct combat gears). Furthermore, expand their color register space to allow access to the extra alternate color palettes featured across console and modern collection releases.
Rainbow Mika Ending Restoration: Fully repair and align Rainbow Mika's complete illustrated ending sequence to match the Sega NAOMI and console layouts. This patch will cleanly parse her story dialogues completely in English and fix the cinematic layer transitions during her interactions with the collapsing Psycho Drive and Zangief's rescue scene.
Sakura Ending Visual Fix: Restore and properly align the transition layers and character graphics during Sakura's ending sequence, specifically fixing the emotional cinematic frame where Ryu leaves and walks away into the sunset, with all text translated to English.
Vega (Claw) Ending Restoration & Fix: Restore and properly translate the complete dialogue script for Vega's ending sequence into English, specifically fixing the narrative cinematic frames depicting Vega rescuing Cammy and getting her safely out of the collapsing Shadaloo Psycho Drive chamber.
Gen Ending Visual Correction: Fix the sprite palette indices during Gen's ending cutscene to correctly render Akuma (Gouki) with his accurate glowing red hair and the iconic red "Ten" (Heaven) Kanji emblazoned on his back, accompanied by English translation tables.
Akuma (Gouki) Standalone Ending Visual Correction: Ensure Akuma's victory portrait in his own ending sequence is similarly patched to show his proper red hair and red "Ten" mark configuration, with full English text.
E. Honda Native Ending Restoration: Localize and restore E. Honda's full illustrated ending sequence into English, specifically fixing the narrative scene to depict E. Honda training with two Julis and Juni right in E. Honda's native stage environment.
Dhalsim Ending Visual Fix: Restore and correctly align the unique victory portrait of Lifesize Dhalsim at the end of his path, rendering inside Dhalsim's stage for his proper ending sequence with localized English script.
Adon Ending Visual Fix: Map and restore the victory portrait of Adon at the end of his path inside Adon's stage, completely fixing the background layer glitches found in older distributions and adding clean English typography.
2. Marvel / Versus Engine Modules & Palette Hacks
The core focus here is extracting the localized script files, color palette properties, and quality-of-life menu frameworks from modern collection ports, restoring character aesthetics directly to physical B-board EPROM layouts [2.26934/].
X-Men: Children of the Atom (xmcotaj.zip):
Script & Interface Port: Port the updated script variables and clean English UI elements natively into the Japanese parent.
Juggernaut & Magneto Palette Restoration: Apply hex edits to enable custom sprite color maps and expand color select inputs for Juggernaut and Magneto, bringing full color selection options to these characters.
Marvel Super Heroes (mshj.zip):
True Boss Colors & Story Endings Fix: Overwrite the baseline palette registers to grant playable Dr. Doom and Thanos their true, visually accurate arcade boss colors rather than altered player color mappings. Additionally, repair the layout logic pointers in the Japanese parent to cleanly execute and loop their true individual narrative ending text sequences translated completely into English without buffer crashes or graphic freeze glitches.
X-Men vs. Street Fighter (xmvsfj.zip):
Apocalypse Localized Dialogue Integration: The original Japanese arcade version features completely unique, character-specific pre-battle text dialogue interactions between every single individual character and the boss, Apocalypse. This patch will inject 68000 pointer vectors to map accurate English translations over these text boxes, fully restoring a localized version of this exclusive dialogue engine.
Expanded Color Allocations: Inject assembly hacks into the character select grid to bypass the traditional 2-color palette limits, enabling full, unrestricted alternate-color select behavior for the entire roster.
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (mshvsfj.zip):
Playable Bosses, True Endings & Custom Palettes: Keep Norimaro fully available on the grid while mapping standard text parameters to load the internal English script assets. Additionally, implement an assembly hack to make Apocalypse and Cyber Akuma natively selectable characters on the character select screen. This includes repairing the ending pointers to allow both bosses to trigger proper, un-glitched individual story endings translated cleanly into English, alongside expanded multi-color select palette sheets for both characters.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (mvscj.zip):
Morrigan Victory Pose Restoration: Re-route graphic layer calls to restore Morrigan's original Japanese-exclusive victory pose featuring Lilith. This censored asset (Morrigan summoning Lilith to join her in a specialized victory state) will be seamlessly patched to execute correctly on physical arcade systems.
On-Screen Language & Palette Matrix: Localize narrative text and win quotes into English while retaining original Japanese character layout names and adding expanded character coloring options.
Hardware Requirements & Implementation Rules
To ensure these modifications operate flawlessly on both digital setups and original physical arcade B-boards via standard IPS patchers, all assembly additions must comply with Capcom’s architecture requirements:
Boundary Word Alignment: Injected text, graphics blocks, or character lookup tables must maintain strict word bounds (even-byte offset structures) to prevent fatal 68000 address exceptions on real hardware.
Capcom Core Terminators: The string scanning logic must explicitly employ $FF control codes to break dialogue arrays and $00 flags to return control to graphic v-blank loop timers.
Competitive Parity: Hitbox states, input-buffering registers, gray-damage curves, and native attack-recovery tables must remain 100% unaltered.
THREAD COOPERATION & MODERATION GUIDELINES
1. Zero Tolerance No-ROM Policy: Do not share, post, or link to pre-patched Capcom ROM sets, console disc ISO files, or game-extraction file directories. All community creations must be compiled and shared strictly as standard IPS patch files (.ips).
2. Unified Workbench Reference: All core hex research must target decrypted parent sets to ensure the target memory offsets remain synchronized between separate contributors.
I am prepared to manage the script extraction formatting, sorting, and dialogue cleanup using the collection files. If you have experience navigating CPS2 sprite index matrices, hacking 68000 assembly, or generating stable IPS matrices for retro platforms, your expertise is highly welcome!
Thanks for looking,
Jonny Modlin
