Metal Slader Glory: Director's Cut/ROM map

The following article is a ROM map for Metal Slader Glory: Director's Cut.

ROM

Note: Byte size = EntryNumber Template:X 3 - 1

* 0x10207B to 0x10575B (036E0) = Primary pointer table for the entire game's dialogue. 4683 entries. Pointer entries are three bytes each. Text is scattered around the ROM haphazardly. Length bits in the address pointer are zeroed out for every entry. The byte 00 is used as a delimeter.
* 0x10575C to 0x10843B (02CE1) = Primary pointer table for dictionary. 3830 entries (excluding the line break command). Pointer entries are three bytes each. Text is scattered around the ROM in small patches. 
* 0x10843E to 0x109FFE (01BC0) = Dialogue region.
* 0x14ED03 to 0x175896 (26B93) = Dialogue region.
* 0x175897 to 0x175FFF (00768) = Empty space.
* 0x176000 to 0x17A29F (0429F) = ????
* 0x17A2A0 to 0x17BFFF (01D5F) = Empty space.
* 0x180000 to 0x185FFF (-----) = Character portrait graphics.
* 0x168000 to 0x300000 (-----) = Empty space.
* 0x188000 to 0x18E01F (-----) = Character portrait graphics.

Pointer structure

Although typically for SNES games, this game uses three byte pointers; however, this game adopts a space saving measure by storing a dialogue entry's length within a pointer. The dialogue's pointers have the length bits zeroed out because it uses a delimeter. The dictionary's pointers use these bits because 0x00 is used for control codes.

Address layout (in bits)

The Stardust Crusaders translation uses the length bits to use the translation's expanded ROM space. This is only for the dialogue. The dictionary needs these bits.

a

, b = length bytes

x

, y , z = Address bytes

a1 a2 

x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6 y1 y2 y3 y4 y5 y6 y7 y8 b1 b2 b3 z1 z2 z3 z4 z5

Length   = 		-  -  - 

a1 a2 b1 b2 b3

Address  = 
     
     Original:

     cccccccc =  0  0  1  0 

x1 x2 x3 x4

     dddddddd =  1 

x5 x6 z1 z2 z3 z4 z5

     eeeeeeee = y1 y2 y3 y4 y5 y6 y7 y8

     Final LoROM address = cccccccc dddddddd eeeeeeee

Dictionary

Dictionary Subpage