Anti-life Trooper Androgynous

The 1987 title Han-Seimei Senki Andorogynus, or just Andorogynus, got the pimp-treatement it deserves. Not only has the game been fully translated to English, also sound and graphics are upgraded, and extra features have been added. This transformation is now freely available as patch.

Back in the glory days, the Japanese software company Telenet Japan released an impressive list of original MSX games. Games like Columns, the Fantasm Soldier Valis series, Sa-Zi-Ri, and of-course Andorogynus to name a few. They all have that typical Telenet vibe.

One drawback of these games is, most are all completely presented in the Japanese language. In these modern days of computing, we see a lot of translation projects for such titles. Andorogynus was another project waiting to happen, and so it finally did. As the project is dubbed "Anti-life Trooper Androgynous", even the title has been corrected.

The MSX Translations team did a marvelous job with Androgynous. The initial idea was to just translate the Japanese text to English, but they ended up with new visuals, music and demo sequences to upgrade the game. Taking the PC88 version as inspiration, Meits joined to re-arrange the soundtrack to MSX-Music and MSX-Audio tracks, and the visuals were greatly improved by Toni Gálvez. Also, the extra demo that was present in the PC88 version was added to the MSX version as well.

The end result is an amazing piece of work. The original Andorogynus already was an impressive game, but now Androgynous has taken it a step further; just beyond brilliant.

Some of the main features (full list can be found in release text file):

Full translation of the game texts and its graphics.
Rewrote the game from delay based code to V-SYNC based code. Everything synced to interrupt and added Turbo mode.
Music patches for MSX-Music and/or MSX-Audio.
Added a new song "the URD" for the game over demo.
Synchronized music to parts of intro demo and end demo as it was in the original game.
Added demos after level 3 and 9 and after game-over. With new MSX visuals and music and a story fitting the MSX version.
Added what key to press to continue (which was listed in the manual) and the level of your weapons like in the PC88 version.
Fixed bug that game always set refresh rate at 60Hz without updating RAM variables (it resulted in wrong music playback).

The MSX Translations team for this project:

232 (aka Randam): Translation, research, beta testing
Max Iwamoto: Coding, graphics, fonts, redesign, beta testing
Meits: MSX-MUSIC and MSX-AUDIO music, beta testing
Toni Gálvez: Graphics, beta testing
VampierMSX: beta testing

It may have taken more than 30 years since the original release, but this new upgrade was well worth the wait. Thank you MSX Translations!

Now, go patch and play!

Relevant link: Download the patch at msxtranslations.com
Relevant link: Have a listen at Meits's Andorogynous work
Relevant link: Moving pictures on YouTube

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Comments (39)

By hamlet

Scribe (4106)

18-02-2021, 20:07

First thing: I love the music. This really pimps up the gameplay! Thanks!

By KdL

Paragon (1452)

18-02-2021, 23:14

I'm a huge fan of this game, thank you so much for your hard work!

By TheKid

Paragon (1238)

18-02-2021, 23:06

YEAH, great work!! It realy is a great improvement.

By valkyre

Hero (662)

19-02-2021, 08:11

That looks and sounds really great. Can't wait to try it.

By gdx

Enlighted (6221)

19-02-2021, 08:21

Impressive! The game goes from very average to quite good. Thanks.

(I would have liked to see also the improvements on the Japanese version.)

By Pippo

Hero (521)

19-02-2021, 08:47

Super, super fantastic translated and improved release, really!!
All involved people have been simply genial!
My real, real Congratulations!

By Metalion

Paragon (1625)

19-02-2021, 08:54

Extraordinary !! ... I bought this game when new, but never went further than the first level because it was so damn difficult (and explanations were in japanese). But this new, improved version, makes me want to give it a second chance.

Congratulations !

By JGM

Master (140)

19-02-2021, 10:24

great work, really impressive!!

By Imanok

Paragon (1200)

19-02-2021, 10:44

Very goo job guys! Congrats!

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3659)

19-02-2021, 12:11

Marvelous job describes it pretty well! Thank you so much for this enhancement patch! I had to finish it yesterday, no matter what.

By Zandig Slaytanic

Resident (44)

19-02-2021, 14:29

Congrats guys!
This is an impressive, quality translation. Much appreciated.

By ren

Paragon (1934)

19-02-2021, 16:50

Awesome! Zip: 186 KB, RAR: 99 KB

By Alakran69

Resident (35)

19-02-2021, 19:00

Min 2:16: "sped up" instead "speed up"

I'm sorry for my "Printer Eye"

By valkyre

Hero (662)

19-02-2021, 19:15

It should be sped up!

By dan

Master (243)

19-02-2021, 20:17

impressive work. congrats to the whole team. thanks!

By Manuel

Ascended (19469)

19-02-2021, 21:05

Fantastic work!

I'm running the translated game with the V2 patch on my turboR GT on my Carnivore 2, started with SofaRun and the intro graphics are corrupted. Well, most of them. The texts display fine. The game itself also runs fine up to where I could reach (shock 2).
My patched game has sha1sum 694226684a4dc15ae98dcb6dcdd23ce34e0fcfdf
The patched game ROM works fine in openMSX.

Could be a bug in SofaROM?

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

19-02-2021, 21:09

@Alakran69: thank you for pointing out something you thought was a mistake. Of course it is possible even with tons of play throughs that some minor mistakes are in there and please if you find them, point them out.

In this case it is it is intended to be sped up (present perfect of speed up).

@hamlet I think: thank you ever so much for the nice picture! Much appreciated.

@GDX: the update was quite extensive, also using some of the room that was gained from Japanese text. We are currently looking into a good way to also update it for Japanese speakers. Will let it know if there is an update on that.

@all the compliments; thank you to let us know that the effort is appreciated and that also translations and upgrades for the lesser known gems in the MSX library are appreciated. It is much appreciated and will drive us to make new things.

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

19-02-2021, 21:16

@Manuel: interesting to hear about the bug. What was the SHA1 before you patched it? Does the bug also appear with other romloaders on msx with your rom? Like romload, mgload or others? Intro graphics shouldn't have moved (aside from a few small ones) so weird that they are corrupted. Did the japanese version you used to patch also have that problem?

I will ask to have it looked into if Max knows what could be the case (if the original rom was a correct one).

It could very well be a bug in SofaROM, but it is good to know that for sure...

By meits

Scribe (6544)

19-02-2021, 21:43

Carnivore 2 has been part of testing, just not on an MSX turbo R.

@Manuel
Does it also bug if you flash it to the C2 itself?

By Manuel

Ascended (19469)

19-02-2021, 23:53

I used the ROM from GoodMSX2 with 55183b7b7df66950dbb65ef1065d7d987e0fdf5a
I don't know which other ROM loaders are useful to try. (But as I said, the patched ROM works fine in openMSX.)
The original Japanese version works fine with running it in the same way as the patched ROM.
The same corruption happens when I run the ROM flashed to the Carnivore 2 Flash.

By Manuel

Ascended (19469)

20-02-2021, 00:03

OK, looks like it is a problem similar to what I had with Salamander. When I check on my PC, the patched ROM has the correct sha1sum:
694226684a4dc15ae98dcb6dcdd23ce34e0fcfdf /media/manuel/MSX-Softwar/roms/translat/androgyn.rom
as on my PC before I copied it to the CF card:
694226684a4dc15ae98dcb6dcdd23ce34e0fcfdf /tmp/androgyn.rom

But when I copy this file on my MSX to another directory and then check the sha1sum from my PC, it's different:
f60396dd4d799132037d4b16f384cc610b1d56bb /media/manuel/MSX-Softwar/TEST/ANDROGYN.ROM
and this file, when running it with openMSX, shows the corruption indeed. There's a whole block corrupted. I have a slight suspicion that I"m hitting some kind of Nextor bug. The MSX reads a different file than the PC...
I copied it again to the CF card and now it works fine.

I also contacted Nestor about this issue before (when I had it with Salamander Enhanced), but I didn't get a response yet.

By max_iwamoto

Hero (644)

20-02-2021, 01:51

Manuel wrote:

Fantastic work!

Could be a bug in SofaROM?

Judging on your comment below your original, you solved the issue. And it does looks like a Nextor bug. At the same time the ROM size is not standard. It has 3 extra 16KB pages at the end, so possibly issue can be because of that. Also, ROM required ASCII 16 mapper and choosing ASCII 8 may still run the ROM, but with corrupted GFX. So if issue persist, I would advice to force ASCII 16 mapper to see if it helps. At the same time, I will try to check how it works with Sofarun.

By Manuel

Ascended (19469)

20-02-2021, 09:41

It works fine now. The right mapper was automatically detected. I will ask Nestor again about this phenomenon.

By gdx

Enlighted (6221)

20-02-2021, 14:07

Manuel, see the commentary about Andorogynus in the wiki for MEGA16.

https://www.msx.org/wiki/MEGA16

If you do it you will get the version with sha=ae3c3c2c022f566d2e790aba193470d5826f36cf
It will be auto-detected by openMSX even after the patch is applied and probably even by Sofarun and the Carnivore 2 loader.

By Pac

Scribe (7011)

20-02-2021, 19:44

Thank you so much for this gift guys! I love this game, I also bought it new and despite its difficulty it's one of my favourite games, in my opinion one of the MSX masterpieces. I've just listened the full soundtrack with its differents modes, awesome work Meits!

Seeing there is a patch for MSX-MUSIC + MSX-AUDIO (without samples,) to make the patch even better maybe you could consider adding OPL4 support for the MSX-AUDIO part for those users who don't own the Music Module. Not sure if this is feasible or not...

On the other hand, AFAIK the last boss is unbeatable due to a bug. Can someone confirm this? If so was this bug fixed?

By KdL

Paragon (1452)

20-02-2021, 19:46

Alakran69 wrote:

Min 2:16: "sped up" instead "speed up"

I'm sorry for my "Printer Eye"

I also thought it was a mistake but then I went to Google and learned that: "Sped and speeded are both standard inflections of the verb to speed, and neither is more correct than the other".

By valkyre

Hero (662)

20-02-2021, 20:16

In the context that it is written 'sped up' is the correct one.

By meits

Scribe (6544)

20-02-2021, 21:22

Pac wrote:

On the other hand, AFAIK the last boss is unbeatable due to a bug. Can someone confirm this? If so was this bug fixed?

They told me it's just sadistically hard. You have to shoot certain parts in a certain order while it doesn't give you a hint you shot the right part.
The txt file that comes with the patch explains it all.

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

20-02-2021, 21:28

@Pac: thank you for the nice compliments. You are talking about playing the MSX Audio through OPL4 and not full on OPL4 songs right? I can have an ask if that is feasible.

The last boss is not unbeatable. If you haven't destroyed all its prior weak points, you can't destroy the last point. And one gives no visual cue. If you need the spoilers, in the txt file is listed how you can defeat the bosses. But don't look at it if you don't want this spoiled. I can guarantee you that it can be destroyed by most and probably all weapons, but there are some weapons that are far more effective.

By Manuel

Ascended (19469)

20-02-2021, 21:55

gdx wrote:

Manuel, see the commentary about Andorogynus in the wiki for MEGA16.

https://www.msx.org/wiki/MEGA16

But this is not needed. The patched ROM is already correctly detected by openMSX and sofarun.

By Pac

Scribe (7011)

20-02-2021, 22:07

Meits wrote:

They told me it's just sadistically hard. You have to shoot certain parts in a certain order while it doesn't give you a hint you shot the right part. The txt file that comes with the patch explains it all.

Understood!

Randam wrote:

@Pac: thank you for the nice compliments. You are talking about playing the MSX Audio through OPL4 and not full on OPL4 songs right? I can have an ask if that is feasible.

That's right, the same that Team Deva made for the Angelic Warrior DEVA game.

Thank you for your responses.

By Ivan

Ascended (9358)

21-02-2021, 11:42

This was an MSX2 game widely available in Spain in the late eighties. I do remember seeing it in the computer department of El Corte Inglés alongside other MSX2 games like Arkanoid II, Deep Forest, Sa-Zi-Ri, Contra,...

By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3444)

21-02-2021, 19:27

Amazing and very impressive. Thanks thanks thanks!

By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3444)

21-02-2021, 19:30

I agree, Im buyed Andorogynus in the 1991 in the Corte Ingles of Plaza Cataluña (Barcelona) .

By karloch

Prophet (2159)

21-02-2021, 19:33

mesiasmsx wrote:

I agree, Im buyed Andorogynus in the 1991 in the Corte Ingles of Plaza Cataluña (Barcelona) .

Was it sold as import game? I thought it was never officially released outside Japan.

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

21-02-2021, 21:05

Yes it was sold as an import game. A good friend of mine (who died far too early) had an import version back in the day. Those had no Japanese manual but a small English insert. Later on I have seen versions with a French insert. So it was at least imported in The Netherlands, France and Spain back in the day.

By Ivan

Ascended (9358)

21-02-2021, 21:19

karloch wrote:

Was it sold as import game? I thought it was never officially released outside Japan.

Yes it was. I don't know who was the distributor of Japanese MSX games for such a big department store. In Spain it might have been Discovery Informatic from Barcelona.

By meits

Scribe (6544)

21-02-2021, 21:54

Randam wrote:

Here's the one I found in a unit probably imported by Dutch Homesoft.
It came with the Japanese manual as well.

By Metalion

Paragon (1625)

03-03-2021, 08:39

Randam wrote:

You can add Belgium as well.
I bought Andorogynus, new, in a MSX-dedicated shop in Brussels, back in the late '80s.

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