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Post subject: There!!
PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 5:51 am 
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After beating the level 50 dragon, I went back and beat
Spoiler! :
Qin Shi Huang
again, so that I could get my final levels for DoubleD's thread and give the fine people here a post-completion word on this! (Not "last"...I'm not done fiddling with this game yet, and I hope not done discussing it.)

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Let's start off with the...

Positives:

  • Setting! Weaving real history into an RPG story was a bold move and the central defining point of this game's identity. With how different the two are, this left the potential for an original "RPG-like" plot heavily restricted, but in that handful of good moments, it's really good. Of course it would be, because no fiction writer could have foreseen how history itself would play out. The premise is perfect: a new unknown variable (the player) comes into the equation, someone who crosses paths with Lin Xiangru, Jing Ke, AND Ying Zheng, ordained by the code to change the past.
    Spoiler! :
    During his lifespan, at least...not sure how I feel about King Zheng's part of the epilogue.
    Speaking of setting, let's give a bullet point to...

  • Age progression! Is it just me, or do JRPGs almost never center around adults? Why is that? Youthful looks and theatrics are fine, but way too easy to get jaded with. The whole concept of watching someone come of age through some fantastical conflict never resonated with me at all. Give me more games with this bunch, because they're somehow more entertaining the one word an hour they speak! Having them get older along with the story adds a great sense of scope, once again befitting watching an alternate history unfold.

  • Music! I can never predict what I'll like, but when I do, it's fiercely. Top 5 (titles from 004040's SPC rip): Prologue, Battle in the Dungeon, Field After Becoming Sage (Sennin), Writing a Book at His Hermitage, Three Mountains
    [Psst! There were two tracks not in that link. Anyone else catch them? My least favorite two, luckily. Maybe they got another composer at the last second and threw them somewhere weird in the ROM.]

  • Difficulty was, compared to what others have said, well-tempered. Once you know what to do in what place, there's pretty much nothing standing in your way. As someone who HATES puzzles, I can say those in the same boat don't have to worry. (I bet that first stone puzzle isn't even that bad; I just assumed it looked impossible!) There are major difficulty issues I'll get to below, but all confined to those playing on an original SNES with no guide. Boss fights pretty much followed my ideal guidelines for them in a JRPG: make them long, but with very little chance of losing if you pay attention. (Up until the last boss, the first and tenth time I needed to use an item in battle.)

And the obligatory
Downsides:

  • Direction. Quest requirements. I generally pull up a guide for any game I play because frankly, I tend to need one, and going without one here would have been absolutely hopeless. I don't know how Recca did it. THIS is where the game gets (and deserves) its reputation as inaccessible.

  • Random encounters (in the overworld). As everyone else has said, when you're in the overworld, you can die at any moment without warning when you inevitably roll the wrong encounter. Walking around the field before getting Stealth and suddenly being thrown late-game enemies simply can't be excused, especially when exploration is encouraged...

  • Experience calculation. Because I simply like to keep a game I like running in the background somewhere, I'll often grind in an RPG. When the strongest enemies available suddenly start giving 1 EXP each, though, that casual drive to keep inputting dies down. As of typing this it even happens in the final dungeon. Are those dragons serious when mentioning levels as high as 50? 60? 80?

  • In the end, all those can be summed up as "difficulty". :P Just not the kind or magnitude I expected.

Next, bugs...or were they emulation errors (PocketSNES for 3DS)? Human errors, even? I'll record them here anyway, in case anyone experienced them:

  • When recruiting Zhang, he didn't appear even after I talked to everyone in Luoyang, including the guy who mentions him by name. I went to the mountain pass (函谷関...I forget how it was translated), talked to the guy blocking the way, went back to Luoyang, talked to everyone again, saved and reset, and at some point the flag for Zhang's availability triggered.

  • DO NOT use Sword of Silence in the final boss rush!! (The last boss itself seems fine...) Some kind of weird instruction jump happens the turn after you attack with it, in these particular fights...maybe someone could trace them. The message "The enemy struck first!" (unused?) will come up, followed by "Han Soldier needs 16000 EXP to level up." and a handful of variations on that theme before a soft-lock.

Let's end off with a couple tips. These are forthcoming with the proper English guide. But since somehow there isn't a quick walkthrough for the final dungeon, here's the "panda route" (completion):
middle door -> door -> left 3 -> left 1 -> right 2 -> leftmost door -> right 1 -> right staircase -> panda
The "mole route" has items along the way that you can use to superpower your heavy hitters with, but it's unlikely that it's worth it if you just want to finish. Start with the left door and check every branching path to follow that one.

Thank you greatly for translating this bizarre game! To anyone from Be-On Works or Outrigger chugging along over in Japan, this goes out to you too. This is a one-of-a-kind work that's well worth passing the initial hurdles to experience. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see if my friend found a copy of The Emperor and the Assassin...


A stamp for your book? Sorry, I don't have one.


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 6:58 am 
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Sherkel wrote:
DO NOT use Sword of Silence in the final boss rush!! (The last boss itself seems fine...) Some kind of weird instruction jump happens the turn after you attack with it, in these particular fights...maybe someone could trace them. The message "The enemy struck first!" (unused?) will come up, followed by "Han Soldier needs 16000 EXP to level up." and a handful of variations on that theme before a soft-lock.

I reported the same error to Wildbill back when I was still beta testing this game. While fighting the second boss in the gauntlet, the game froze for me as well with the same message: "The enemy struck first!" I can't remember exactly what equipment I had at the time, but the game worked and I was able to proceed as normal after loading and beating the boss again (without changing any equipment). Perhaps this bug will be ironed out and fixed in a future release, thanks for the report by the way!

And this game was indeed quite tough at times. Though for me it was more because of the puzzles and trying to figure out where to go next without a walkthrough nor guides of any kind (not even the retro gaming Japanese sites that I checked had any). Of course, getting wiped out by overpowered enemies when wandering in the wrong areas didn't exactly help either. Luckily, after hiring some of the stronger mercenaries, I was able to level up quite quickly by defeating these enemies via level grinding. Anyway, I'm glad that you enjoyed playing this game and thanks for the feedback as always!


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 7:03 am 
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Sherkel wrote:
After beating the level 50 dragon, I went back and beat
Spoiler! :
Qin Shi Huang
again, so that I could get my final levels for DoubleD's thread and give the fine people here a post-completion word on this! (Not "last"...I'm not done fiddling with this game yet, and I hope not done discussing it.)

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Let's start off with the...

Positives:

  • Setting! Weaving real history into an RPG story was a bold move and the central defining point of this game's identity. With how different the two are, this left the potential for an original "RPG-like" plot heavily restricted, but in that handful of good moments, it's really good. Of course it would be, because no fiction writer could have foreseen how history itself would play out. The premise is perfect: a new unknown variable (the player) comes into the equation, someone who crosses paths with Lin Xiangru, Jing Ke, AND Ying Zheng, ordained by the code to change the past.
    Spoiler! :
    During his lifespan, at least...not sure how I feel about King Zheng's part of the epilogue.
    Speaking of setting, let's give a bullet point to...

  • Age progression! Is it just me, or do JRPGs almost never center around adults? Why is that? Youthful looks and theatrics are fine, but way too easy to get jaded with. The whole concept of watching someone come of age through some fantastical conflict never resonated with me at all. Give me more games with this bunch, because they're somehow more entertaining the one word an hour they speak! Having them get older along with the story adds a great sense of scope, once again befitting watching an alternate history unfold.

  • Music! I can never predict what I'll like, but when I do, it's fiercely. Top 5 (titles from 004040's SPC rip): Prologue, Battle in the Dungeon, Field After Becoming Sage (Sennin), Writing a Book at His Hermitage, Three Mountains
    [Psst! There were two tracks not in that link. Anyone else catch them? My least favorite two, luckily. Maybe they got another composer at the last second and threw them somewhere weird in the ROM.]

  • Difficulty was, compared to what others have said, well-tempered. Once you know what to do in what place, there's pretty much nothing standing in your way. As someone who HATES puzzles, I can say those in the same boat don't have to worry. (I bet that first stone puzzle isn't even that bad; I just assumed it looked impossible!) There are major difficulty issues I'll get to below, but all confined to those playing on an original SNES with no guide. Boss fights pretty much followed my ideal guidelines for them in a JRPG: make them long, but with very little chance of losing if you pay attention. (Up until the last boss, the first and tenth time I needed to use an item in battle.)

And the obligatory
Downsides:

  • Direction. Quest requirements. I generally pull up a guide for any game I play because frankly, I tend to need one, and going without one here would have been absolutely hopeless. I don't know how Recca did it. THIS is where the game gets (and deserves) its reputation as inaccessible.

  • Random encounters (in the overworld). As everyone else has said, when you're in the overworld, you can die at any moment without warning when you inevitably roll the wrong encounter. Walking around the field before getting Stealth and suddenly being thrown late-game enemies simply can't be excused, especially when exploration is encouraged...

  • Experience calculation. Because I simply like to keep a game I like running in the background somewhere, I'll often grind in an RPG. When the strongest enemies available suddenly start giving 1 EXP each, though, that casual drive to keep inputting dies down. As of typing this it even happens in the final dungeon. Are those dragons serious when mentioning levels as high as 50? 60? 80?

  • In the end, all those can be summed up as "difficulty". :P Just not the kind or magnitude I expected.

Next, bugs...or were they emulation errors (PocketSNES for 3DS)? Human errors, even? I'll record them here anyway, in case anyone experienced them:

  • When recruiting Zhang, he didn't appear even after I talked to everyone in Luoyang, including the guy who mentions him by name. I went to the mountain pass (函谷関...I forget how it was translated), talked to the guy blocking the way, went back to Luoyang, talked to everyone again, saved and reset, and at some point the flag for Zhang's availability triggered.

  • DO NOT use Sword of Silence in the final boss rush!! (The last boss itself seems fine...) Some kind of weird instruction jump happens the turn after you attack with it, in these particular fights...maybe someone could trace them. The message "The enemy struck first!" (unused?) will come up, followed by "Han Soldier needs 16000 EXP to level up." and a handful of variations on that theme before a soft-lock.

Let's end off with a couple tips. These are forthcoming with the proper English guide. But since somehow there isn't a quick walkthrough for the final dungeon, here's the "panda route" (completion):
middle door -> door -> left 3 -> left 1 -> right 2 -> leftmost door -> right 1 -> right staircase -> panda
The "mole route" has items along the way that you can use to superpower your heavy hitters with, but it's unlikely that it's worth it if you just want to finish. Start with the left door and check every branching path to follow that one.

Thank you greatly for translating this bizarre game! To anyone from Be-On Works or Outrigger chugging along over in Japan, this goes out to you too. This is a one-of-a-kind work that's well worth passing the initial hurdles to experience. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see if my friend found a copy of The Emperor and the Assassin...
You are a hardy soul! I knew this game would snare a handful of players who would become “hooked”. While I was translating and polishing, hauser played alongside me all the way through, twice. Together, we shared discoveries. The process goes so slowly, with endless reversals and starts-over, rarely does a tandem team miss anything. I will recheck the translations of the battle strings you mentioned. Congratulations on finishing. I never cared for repetitive teenagers saving the world nearly every single RPG, either!


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 4:49 pm 
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; まだ準備ができていない!
The enemy struck first!
[end-4]

Retranslation: (I'm not ready yet!)

;[mem$F100]が次のレベルになるには
; あと[num$F400]経験が必要じゃ
[mem$F100] needs [num$F400] more EXP
to level up.[end-4]

Retranslation: (In order to reach the next level, [mem$F100] needs [num$F400] more experience.)

Displayed in the correct junctures, what we loaded for those two strings seems to work. I suppose when I rewrote the first one to "The enemy struck first!" my reasoning was it sounded more lethally dramatic. Anyway, that "enemy struck" string was the very first string in the very first block of the dialogue dump.

A particular machine translation aid I've recently "discovered" often places multiple readings with attempted correct English syntax. The biggest drawback with this aid for translating dumped RPG scripts is it hates embedded control codes. Frequently, I must enter strings one line at a time or sanitize the string by deleting all of the control codes. Nevertheless, "DeepL Translate" is the best software I've found for getting me on the right track to accurately cracking what the Japanese author wrote. The rest of the process can be very time-consuming, combining searches of Japanese websites and using pinpoint Japanese dictionaries such as "Jisho.org". Sometimes, I even shoot my phone camera at the computer screen and see what the "G Translate" app spits out.

Anyway, at this time, I don't see any "soft crash" fixes on the horizon. The usual first test is to replicate the crash sequence in the Japanese ROM. If it happens there, we're usually toast on those bugs.


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 11:13 pm 
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I just noticed that gamefaqs now has both a puzzle guide and world map available:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/571308-shiki-eiyuuden/faqs

Of course, it probably won't be very useful to those that have already beaten the game and memorized everything already. But it might prove useful for those who are still playing and may be stuck on a certain puzzle.


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:58 am 
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Recca wrote:
I just noticed that gamefaqs now has both a puzzle guide and world map available:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/571308-shiki-eiyuuden/faqs

Of course, it probably won't be very useful to those that have already beaten the game and memorized everything already. But it might prove useful for those who are still playing and may be stuck on a certain puzzle.
Thanks for the tip, Recca!


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:49 am 
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Recca wrote:
I just noticed that gamefaqs now has both a puzzle guide and world map available:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/571308-shiki-eiyuuden/faqs

Of course, it probably won't be very useful to those that have already beaten the game and memorized everything already. But it might prove useful for those who are still playing and may be stuck on a certain puzzle.


Ive contacted the poster of that map a number of times to be ignored, they've put on there i'm the original creator of that map when THAT map is one from the instruction manual itself.. >.<


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You can find all types of RPG, JRpg, Mmo, PC, SNES, and PS1 games mini-reviewed with no voice-overs there.


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 5:23 pm 
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Thanks, guys! I'll be taking a look at that Sword of Silence bug with Hausen's save he posted. Great as always to hear anything more about the translation process!

In the meantime, I felt like doing an improvised commentary of the first half hour of the game, partially because the game deserves more coverage, but also to prove the first puzzle is very much possible: https://youtu.be/-LphHMMXgAM
My voice is drowned out by the game audio for a lot of it, but I might not keep it up anyway. :P

Beat the "level 60" dragon, by the way! Not even any clutch moments with these levels (the last boss is certainly harder.) Maybe the 70 and 80 ones will go down too.


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:43 pm 
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SylarDean wrote:
Recca wrote:
I just noticed that gamefaqs now has both a puzzle guide and world map available:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/571308-shiki-eiyuuden/faqs

Of course, it probably won't be very useful to those that have already beaten the game and memorized everything already. But it might prove useful for those who are still playing and may be stuck on a certain puzzle.


Ive contacted the poster of that map a number of times to be ignored, they've put on there i'm the original creator of that map when THAT map is one from the instruction manual itself.. >.<
For some reason, a fair number of gamers through the years prefer to discuss and coordinate early patch play at that site rather than here. Thus, I jumped into that venue myself years ago to post info concerning a given translation, only to see hundreds of comments and even whole threads deleted from their game boards. For that reason, I don’t post anything there any more. My conclusion was the people who run that site are hostile to the translation community.

It’s funny how many individuals through the years I’ve noted that have taken a hobby and pastime that is supposed to be fun and dedicate a high level of energy toward trying to screw it up.


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Post subject: Re: There!!
PostPosted: Sat May 01, 2021 7:19 am 
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Sadly, this seems to be true with just about every hobby and passion on the internet these days. There's always some group of complete utter losers (especially online) who seem to exist only for the sole purpose of attempting to sabotage and destroy other people's creative hobbies and interests. These can either be easily triggered and offended liberal snowflakes or simply moronic trolls that have absolutely nothing better to do in their spare time. Many sites such as Gamefaqs, ResetEra and RHDN (quite ironically) have many users which purposely try to bring down translation/romhacking groups and projects because of their narrow minded left-wing political views via the modern phenomenon known as "cancel culture" which unfortunately seems to be the "new normal" these days.

Which is also quite amusingly ironic seeing as how the left likes to accuse right-wing conservatives of "trolling" online when in fact it is usually they (the left) who do so constantly. For example, just look at the many racist comments made by liberal democrats towards the Republican Senator Tim Scott after his official response to Biden's speech. Quite hypocritical indeed for those who like to falsely label the right as racist/sexist all the time. "Democrats?" "DemonCraps" is more like it, seeing as how there's nothing at all "democratic" about them. It's either "agree with us or we'll label you as the enemy and destroy you!" No offense intended towards moderate liberals, these comments were made only towards the alt-left. Check the Fox News videos on Youtube below and the other two links for more information on all of this and more:

https://www.youtube.com/c/FoxNews/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/SkyNewsAustralia/videos
https://conservapedia.com/Main_Page

Wildbill and Tom are two examples of hard working individuals in the romhacking/translation community that get quite often and unfairly attacked online by many moronic users such as "noneother" and "spooniest" (from RHDN), among others. Here's some examples of these types of uncalled for attacks:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/916396-super-nintendo/78357624?page=13
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=310;area=showposts;start=20

Just scroll down a bit and you'll all see what I mean. For some strange reason, it's also become quite common to see anime/manga and JRPG fans alike get attacked online for no purpose at all in many places such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. What's with this sudden and xenophobic hatred towards anything Japanese lately? Damn bloody degenerate and uneducated loser trolls wouldn't know good quality entertainment if you hit them over the face with it... Not that I'm saying it's all good or anything (because many series indeed aren't) nor that they have to like it, but just shut up about it and stop harassing people over such trivial things as personal tastes in media/entertainment.

This reminds me of how many comic book and sci-fi fans were often targeted and attacked in the past (and probably still are to a certain extent). Jeez, what the heck is wrong with these types of people, seriously? Talk about not having anything better to do with your free time. Get a hobby or passion in life already and find something that's actually positive, constructive and worth your time doing. For this reason, it's probably better to either steer clear of such negative sites which contain toxic fan bases completely or simply try to ignore these types of people and their comments if possible.

But anyway, I seem to have gotten quite off topic already to say the least... So Sherkel, are you planning on releasing a full playthrough of the complete game or just a sample video of the intro and opening gameplay? Regardless, good work so far and thanks for the feedback once again as always!


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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