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Research: [IDB available] Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced Research Thread

esperance

esperance

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    • Seen Mar 20, 2025
    Just to correct and add to the knowledge of text, the English text goes from 0x001D153C to 0x001D3984.

    At 0x001D3C94 begins all of the French text, going through 0x001D5C1F.

    At 0x001D5F30 begins all of the German text, going through 0x001D7F4F.

    At 0x001D8260 begins all of the Spanish text, going through 0x001DA157.

    At 0x001DA468 begins all of the Italian text, going through 0x001DC443.

    Finally, at 0x001DC754 begins all of the Dutch text, going through 0x001DE72F.

    Also, I've figured out how the game accesses the text!
    Following each text section, is a table of 195 pointers to different sections of the text. (It is 0x310 bytes long)

    Here are the offsets of each table (for clarification):
    English: 0x001D3984
    French: 0x001D5C20
    German: 0x001D7F50
    Spanish: 0x001DA158
    Italian: 0x001DC444
    Dutch: 0x001DE730

    Here's the layout of the table, as far as I have bothered to figure out.
    Spoiler:


    Obviously it needs some people to go through and finish it out.

    Also, I have noticed what look like two message codes, "<#>" and "<$>"
    However, it should be noted that they are separate characters!
    "<" and ">" print < and >, while "#" prints "A" and "$" prints "A", this is because "#" and "$" are 'invalid.' They have not font representation.

    Also, to end a message, there are 2 bytes ,00 00, just like Team Fail said.
    However, sometimes there are 4 bytes (00 00 00 00).

    On the subject of newlines, it is quite simple... just put two the hex value 0x0A (newline in ASCII)
    I'm not really sure on this, though.

    Now, onto text color.
    To set the text color, you just set one byte.
    Value - Color - Usage
    0x00 - None - None
    0x01 - Orange - Used for normal stuff
    0x02 - White/None - Not used?
    0x03 - Green - Used for names
    All else - puts "A" instead of color.
     
    Last edited:
    All the languages are in one game. And I figured that was why A was showing up.
     
    The languages are most definitely not encrypted they're in ASCII just like English.
    We just need to find the fonts for the characters.

    Also, when I put 00 as the first character, the message box didn't show up. Does this mean just 00 is the terminator?
     
    Team Fail said:
    Weird. I go to the offsets and I see nothing like French or anything. Perhaps it's because I'm using my own dump and you might be using a European version.
    Click to expand...

    That may be the case. I downloaded mine, and all the languages are there. You have to choose one at startup.
     
    Team Fail said:
    Yeah. Mine just goes into the game. There's a regional difference right there. I'll add that to the OP.
    Click to expand...

    Okay.

    On another note, I took a look at the RAM, and I've identified the use of some offsets

    Offset - Purpose
    02000010 to 02000014 - Timer? (Goes up by one each frame)
    02000018 to 0200001C - Key state
    Spoiler:

    020001CC to 020001D0 - Another timer?
    02000E54 to 02000E5B - Player's sprite frame
    02000E5C to 02000E60 - Altitude of player. Signed integer.
    Spoiler:
     
    Last edited:
    I actually just got the USA ROM, and I now have something else to add for text.
    In the USA version, the text begins at 0x001D3820 and goes through 0x001D5C03, with the table starting at 0x001D5C04.

    Also, it turns out the text is different from the EUR version completely!

    In the EUR version, the last text is "use <#> to brake...", but in the USA version, the last text is "...but i have created turbo gates to help you stay ahead of the danger."

    Also, the table for the USA version is shorter, being only 2FC bytes long, with 191 entries!

    EDIT: A correction to the RAM addresses 02000E5C to 02000E60. It is the altitude of the player, but the extra is F if the player is going up, and 0 if he is going down.

    EDIT 2: The tilesets are 256 colors, for the record.
     
    Last edited:
    Very nice. That confirms the use of a different sound engine for the game.
     
    Very interesting. Makes sense, but definitely adds a layer of complexity to the code.
     
    Hey, it's the same Einstein95 from TCRF here. I found these weird offsets after playing around for a bit:

    0x03007DA3 (scrolls map (Y)):
    00 - Return to Crash
    <7F - Right
    >7F - Left

    0x03007DA7 (scrolls map (X)):
    00 - Return to Crash
    <7F - Down
    >7F - Up

    For example, if you were to set 0x03007DA7 to 80, then the camera moves up. It seems like it was planned to have a way of looking around the map, like in other games (Super Mario World springs to mind). This is probably true given that 00 returns back to Crash in a smooth camera movement.


    ETA: Oh, and I found the time trial counter (not the gems)
    Time Trial counter:
    02002708 - Minutes
    0200270C - Seconds
    02002710 - Deciseconds (1/10th of a second)
    02002714 - Centiseconds (1/100th of a second)

    What's interesting is that it counts the centiseconds which aren't displayed in the timer.
     
    I was taking a look at the thread again, and I decided I'd do a little bit of research.

    So, I come with information!

    Here's what little I found about palettes in the ROM. I'll add more to the list as I go.
    Spoiler:


    Yay!
     
    So I was looking around in the ASM, and I saw an interesting function at 08001C1C.
    It has to do with playing songs, and I think it may have to deal with how stages play songs.
     
    Good work for that latest info, there are news regards this?? Youre still doing research???
     
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