/vr/ - Retro Games

I want to restore the 'party chat' feature to the English DS version of Dragon Quest IV. It basically added extra dialogue for all the party members (both permanent and temporary) but was removed from the English localisation. It was later re-added when they ported it to Android and iOS.

This person on GBAtemp found a way to port it back to the Japanese DS version (which has an unfinished English-language option available through a cheat code): https://gbatemp.net/threads/dragon-quest-iv-party-chat-restoration.381078/

They ported the files from the English Android version and it seems to work fairly well. Unfortunately I'm unable to replicate their success - the game crashes as soon as a new game is started from the menu for me.

What I'm thinking though, is that using the Japanese version might not be the best way to go about it. I'm wondering if it would be possible to hack the party chat feature back into the English DS version. I reckon it's still in there somewhere, but the command to access the dialogue (pressing the B button while next to another party member) has been disabled.

Could anyone give me some pointers as to what might be the best way to add this feature back in? I'm more than willing to do the hacking/research myself (I'm amateur as fuck, but I have programming skills and would be happy to take the time to learn anything else I'd need to crack into the game) but I'm not quite sure where to begin. Ideally I'd like to see what exactly the Japanese version does when you press the B button, and what the US version does differently.