After applying the FE6 translation patch I downloaded from
this page (a familiar location to all of you, I expect) and playing for a day or so without any real problems, I tried to see Ellen and Lugh's first support conversation and, to my surprise, was shown Shin and Fir's B support conversation instead (all the more disorienting considering I don't even know who these characters are, being only in Chapter 5). And for an extra sprinkle of bugginess (and surreality), only Fir's portrait shows up for the conversation, leaving Shin a disembodied voice.
After much tinkering and research, I'm fairly certain I've tracked the problem to the text references between offset F728C and F72AF in the ROM, corresponding to the support conversations for Ellen+Lugh, Ellen+Chad, and Yodel+Niime. For some reason these 9 references weren't changed when I applied the patch and still point to the same place that they did in the unpatched ROM. From there it is by sizeable coincidence that the original location of the Ellen+Lugh C support conversation is 1 byte away from the patched location of the Shin+Fir B conversation (that extra byte the cause of Fir's portrait malfunction, I'm guessing). I'm doubting I'll be so "lucky" with the other out-of-date references, though.
And for all that I think I know the cause of the problem, that doesn't tell me how to fix it. I certainly don't know where those 9 references are
supposed to point. Does anyone else have this problem? Can anyone else reproduce this problem with the version of the patch that I downloaded? If so, (or even if not) can anyone fix it?
Gosh (gosh!), I hope so.
Edit: Had Shin and Fir confused.