81

Gaming Discussion / Re: "New" GBC RPG released.

« on: August 16, 2016, 11:03:56 pm »

This looks pretty interesting, thanks for the heads up! By the way, here's a short video of it for those who are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-KW8TgSAoA

Looks a bit like a cross-over between Final Fantasy and Golden Sun in my opinion. I'm definitely going to be looking forward to trying this game out when it's ready. I've also found a nice homebrew game made for the GBA called Anguna a while back if anyone is interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVRSChupud8

It's a bit like Legend of Zelda, only with far less puzzles and much more monster slaying.

82

Gaming Discussion / Re: Suggestions for fun, classic MS-DOS games

« on: August 16, 2016, 10:55:25 pm »

I remember having played these titles years ago and thought that they were pretty fun:

- Highway Hunter
- One Must Fall
- Cyberdogs
- C-dogs (the sequel to Cyberdogs)
- Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
- Ambush
- Walls of Rome
- Advanced Destroyer Simulator
- Merlin Challenge
- North and South
- Sherman M-4
- Hannibal
- Realm of the Paladin
- Sabre Team
- Siege
- Tetris

83

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Seriously, why? (IPS vs BPS/UPS/Xdelta)

« on: August 06, 2016, 03:08:03 pm »

Yeah, I agree completely with you on that. When it comes to SNES and other older platforms, why bother using anything else besides IPS format patches? It just creates hardships that force people to either seek pre-patched ROMs online or constantly ask how to apply said patch. For my SNES translation, I've always used IPS patches and continue to do so. We at Dynamic-Designs have started using other patch formats for awhile now after being constantly pressured to do so, but we at least still offer simple to use IPS patches along with the more recent ones.

A lot of times when it comes to new things that are made in the future, it's more of an unnecessary headache rather than an improvement. And this is one of those examples. Using new patches for over decade old games that worked perfectly fine with IPS patches for years now. Damn, I really miss the beautiful 90s! Well, except maybe not for awful dialup...

84

Gaming Discussion / Re: Games that let you play the scenario from different points of view

« on: December 10, 2015, 02:10:47 am »

There are a few good ones like that, though not many. Most games, especially RPGs usually only have one main story line and main character. Here's the ones that I've played and can think of off the top of my head. I'll divide them between different characters and factions:

Different paths/sides/factions:
Der Langrisser
Gothic series
Risen series
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
StarCraft series
WarCraft series
Tactics Ogre series

Different characters:
Seiken Densetsu 3
Sword of Mana
Lord of the Rings (GBA series)
Live A Live
Rudra no Hihou
Nekketsu Tairiku Burning Heroes
Record of Lodoss War (SNES version)
Dark Half
Final Fantasy III/VI
Chrono Trigger

Some games, of course have the option of choosing different characters and sides as well, but I listed them based on which was more important overall. For example, in Der Langrisser, Shogo, Gothic and Risen, the choice of which side you join is the player's choice, but the main character is the same person. Whereas, in Lord of Rings: The Third Age, the choice of character determines which side you're on. Hopefully, this list will prove to be useful to someone.

I didn't bother adding games such as 7th Saga, Ancient Magic, Arcus Odyssey, Crystal Beans, Shining Soul series, Pokémon series and Mystic Ark to the list because even though you can choose which character/gender you prefer, the point of view and story lines are not much different. At times, it's pretty much identical. Same thing with games that let the player pick which class they prefer as in Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy and Shadowrun (GENS version).

85

News Submissions / Re: Translations: La Wares Romanian version released!

« on: December 05, 2015, 11:35:16 am »

Interesting, I didn't know that. Maybe next time, I will change HP and MP to PV and PM then. After all, I did change LV. (level) to NV. (nivel) in this translation.

It is indeed sad to see that the Romanian fan base is not as big as I first expected it to be. I believe that this is because most Romanian gamers already speak English, so they don't bother checking for Romanian translations. It's also possible that they don't even know these translations exist in the first place since it's rare to see one. Maybe some Youtube playthroughs could help get the attention of Romanian fans on other sites. Regardless of this, I still plan to continue translating games, which will hopefully be seen by more fellow fans in the future.

86

News Submissions / Re: Translations: La Wares Romanian version released!

« on: December 05, 2015, 01:25:05 am »

At first, I was going to translate HP and MP as "PV" and "PM" respectively ("Puncte de Viață" and "Puncte de Magie"), but there were two main problems with this. The first was the space issues. Namely, that I couldn't fit more than two characters in those fields. If I would've written PV and PM, most people wouldn't know what it stands for, whereas HP and MP are widely used and known by most if not all RPG gamers. I did add a translation in the readme text file though.

The second problem is that even if I did translate these terms, I still wouldn't have been able to change them in all menus, because some parts of this game required higher level hacking skills in order to modify the script. In matter in fact, I probably wouldn't have been able to translate the battle menu without help from Bongo`. If I remember correctly, I recall leaving the level up message in English because it would've been a real pain to edit and there also wouldn't have been enough space to correctly translate it. Although, I added a translation for this in the readme text file as well. Besides these two small things, everything else has been completely translated into Romanian. The English version will probably be released sometime next year.

Mulţumesc foarte mult! Îmi pare bine că vă place acest joc! Aţi încercat şi pe Chrono Trigger şi Silva Saga II? Au fost traduse tot de mine, împreună cu membrii de la Dynamic-Designs. Se pot gasi şi aici la acest site. Am văzut că cineva a tradus seria de Gothic şi Risen pe Youtube. Este o serie de jocuri RPG care au fost făcute în Germania. Totuși, nu mai stiu de alţi oameni în afară de mine care traduc jocuri Japoneze în Română. Numai nişte serii de anime (cu subtitrari).

87

News Submissions / Re: Translations: La Wares Romanian version released!

« on: December 01, 2015, 12:42:26 am »

Thanks!

By the way, there's one thing that I forgot to mention about this game, which includes the original Japanese version. If you fast forward the game too often with the Zsnes emulator, the game might start displaying garbled text and eventually freeze. This problem can be fixed by either not fast forwarding the game at all or by loading the game from a .srm (game save, not emulator), leaving the current screen or by brining up the menu. I just wanted to mention this before anyone reported a bug in the translation. It's a strange and annoying random glitch.

Another one seems to occur if you lose in a battle. The game over music will play and the main menu will be shown. If you choose "New Game", the game will glitch and show the main character standing in a completely black room. I'm not sure why someone would want to start a new game after losing, but I might as well mention this as well. If you do lose and want to start a new game instead of resuming your current one for whatever reason, just reset the game first.

88

News Submissions / Re: Translations: La Wares Romanian version released!

« on: November 27, 2015, 04:38:02 pm »

Indeed, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian are all part of the Romance family of languages that are derived from Latin. In terms of writing, I've found that Portuguese and Romanian are rather similar, but the pronunciation is quite different at times (more like French, Spanish and Italian). Although, Romanian doesn't have any accents, it's all phonetically pronounced (as it is in Japanese as well). Here's a useful link about the Romance languages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

89

Gaming Discussion / Why do some people complain about long RPGs?

« on: November 25, 2015, 11:39:24 am »

This is something that I've seen quite a few times here and at other sites lately. Why exactly do some people complain that modern RPGs are too long? Isn't that the point? Who wants to pay for a game that they could literally beat in a day or two? It would be an obvious waste of both money and time to invest in such a thing in my honest opinion. Besides, no one is forcing them to finish a game in one sitting or anything if they're busy or whatever, so why are they complaining about this in the first place? Isn't a longer game better than a shorter one?

It just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever... I would much rather play a decent RPG with a long and interesting story line than a short and boring one that's a waste of money. And while we're still on the subject, why play RPGs in the first place if they feel that it takes too much time to finish? Personally, I actually feel that most RPGs are pretty short (both past and present). For example, it certainly would've been nice if Chrono Trigger was a bit longer. So, what are your opinions on this? Do you feel that most RPGs are too long, short or just fine the way they are?

90

News Submissions / Re: Translations: La Wares Romanian version released!

« on: November 24, 2015, 07:04:28 pm »

Thank you, even though this game had quite a few bugs, it was still fun to work on. If anyone is interested in the current progress of the English version, you may look here:
http://www.dynamic-designs.us/lawares.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb0mM9m48oY

Chances are the progress will resume on it shortly after Wildbill returns to the translation scene. The script is already fully translated, but it still needs to be edited a bit and checked for any other possible mistakes. Besides that, there's also some other minor things that need to be done first before being released (such as bug fixes and graphic/script hacks). If you would like more details or to inquire about the progress, please feel free to ask at the D-D board.

91

Gaming Discussion / Re: The Classic Era and The Modern Era of Gaming

« on: November 20, 2015, 11:49:05 am »

The 1990s and early 2000s were definitely the best gaming eras in my opinion. Back then, RPGs actually had decent story lines and characters. These days, the main focus is on showing off their graphical designs while sacrificing the plot. Not to mention the ridiculous system requirements to even play these new modern games (by which I mean the PC games)... Of course, everyone is free to think what they what. I just prefer playing retro games a whole lot more than most of the newer ones. It's exactly the same with anime, music and movies for me. That's not to say that I've never enjoyed playing any modern ones, just not nearly as many.

92

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Help With BS F-Zero for SNES

« on: November 04, 2015, 11:35:52 am »

That's strange, BS F-ZERO Grand Prix 2 works fine for me on Zsnes. Although, it only has the Ace League. The Knight, Queen and King Leagues appear only in the original F-Zero for the SNES. To me, it sounds like you got a bad version of the ROM that was probably hacked or otherwise modified. Try getting it off a different site. It's really not at all hard to find a good/clean version of the ROM if you just run a Google search for it...

By the way, if you really want to play with the BS cars in the original F-Zero, there's a hack available here that lets you do just that. Here's the link to the hack:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1957/

93

Gaming Discussion / Your favorite console and handheld.

« on: November 04, 2015, 01:18:50 am »

Over the years, there have been many different gaming consoles and handhelds made by different companies for various systems. I was curious to see which ones were the overall favorites of the members here and why. This can be either a console, and/or handheld device.

Though it's a bit hard for me to choose seeing as how there's plenty of good ones, I would have to go with the Super Nintendo as my favorite console and the Gameboy Advance as the best handheld. The reason for this is because they both had amazing graphics and music for their time (and still do in my opinion), as well as a very large selection of great games (especially true for the SNES). Overall, these two are almost tied in terms of functionality and gameplay, but I still have to say that I would choose the SNES over the GBA as the greatest gaming system of all time. This is also in part because of the larger RPG selection of the SNES console.

So, to sum things up:
Favorite console: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).
Favorite handheld: Gameboy Advance (GBA).

So, which are your favorite gaming consoles and/or handheld devices and why?

94

News Submissions / Re: ROM Hacks: RotDS v1.4 Released!

« on: November 04, 2015, 01:01:36 am »

This looks like a very well made hack, congratulations on the newest release! I'm definitely looking forward to trying this out soon. There's one thing that I'm curious about though. Is this supposed to be a remake of the original FFVI or an entirely different fan game (story wise) like Fire Emblem - The Last Promise? I'm asking because I haven't tried it yet, but I've seen a gameplay video on youtube that appeared to be FFVI with new characters and scenes, but the same overall plot. I'm not saying that's bad or anything, I'm just curious.

As for the youtube video that I mentioned, it was this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTjPyWrS378

Fire Emblem - The Last Promise (in case anyone is interested in what that is):
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/962/

95

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: I don't understand the ROM/ISO Info Section when submitting a hack

« on: September 24, 2015, 02:36:23 am »

I disagree with the idea of removing IPS patches completely. For starters, it's a very small and simple to use file that is still the most commonly known and used. For ROM hackers, it's not a big deal what type of file they use for patching, but most gamers have no idea how to use anything besides an IPS patch. Not only are IPS patching utilities easier to use than those of other types, but they also allow for the soft patching method with Zsnes and Snes9x.

RHDN could encourage people to not use them anymore, but not ban them completely. Doing so will stop many potential ROM hacks and translations from being submitted to this site anymore in the future. Besides, do you really want to see a ton of people asking "how do I patch this" or "how do I use this patch"?

I believe that it's best to allow people to choose for themselves what they want to do and which patch format to use. We at Dynamic-Designs for example, have multiple patch formats available for download for most of our projects (including all the current ones, but there's plans to release multiple patch formats for some of the older translations as well). Besides, what's the point in using new patch formats for old gaming systems such as the SNES when IPS does the job rather well? I understand updating the patch types used for newer and larger systems, not the older small ones that have games under 16 MB...

By the way, not to get off topic here, but what's with all the Zsnes hate lately? Sure it's not the most accurate emulator for ROM hacking and beta testing, but it's still damn good for gaming in general. And yes, I know that there's a few games that don't work well or even at all with Zsnes, but that's where Snes9x comes in handy. When it comes to casual gaming, most people on gaming and emulation sites still prefer Zsnes, followed by Snes9x in that order. For example, I still use Zsnes for playing most games and Snes9x for beta testing translations and playing games that don't work well with Zsnes. It may be a bit out of date, but it's still a great emulator nonetheless in my opinion. Not to mention, one of the first SNES ones ever made, as well as small in size, simple to use, functional and requiring no installation.

96

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: I don't understand the ROM/ISO Info Section when submitting a hack

« on: September 22, 2015, 01:55:43 am »

I hate to be rude, but in my honest opinion, I find this whole new policy with the ROM/ISO information to be rather annoying and pointless. Most people don't even know what any of it actually means. Wouldn't it be enough to just have a readme text file included with the patch that says "use version 1.0 or 1.1 of the ROM - headered or unheadered" or whatever?

Before I was able to finally submit my Silva Saga-II translation last year, it was rejected about two or three times because I didn't add this useless information in the ROM/ISO field. I had to ask my team mates for it just so I could get past this new field requirement for submissions.

I'm not saying that it should be removed, but could it at least be made an optional field? I firmly believe that if RHDN keeps up this new rigid enforcement of pointless rules and requirements, many fans will stop submitting hacks and translations here because they simply don't want to put up with their submissions being constantly rejected. This otherwise great site will then miss out on many possible future hack and translation submissions. Again, I don't mean to be neither rude nor pushy. This is merely a suggestion, not an order, nor anything else.

Thank you very much for your time and understanding in this manner (holds for applause)...

97

Gaming Discussion / Re: Those Catchy, Catchy Tunes...

« on: May 26, 2015, 05:35:01 am »

I usually like the songs in SNES RPGs such as Chrono Trigger and Tales of Phantasia the most, but I've had the theme Castle Pandemonium from Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls stuck in my head for some time now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNE1wvzU-e8

98

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: New translation done, super shell monsters!

« on: May 17, 2015, 02:22:14 am »

The Kouryuu no Mimi translation for the SNES by RPGOne also isn't listed here. It doesn't happen too often, but there are a few fan translations that aren't available at RHDN.

By the way, could a person submit a translation or hack here that's not their own, or would one require permission from the publisher first? I'm just curious about how the rules apply to this.

99

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: February 20, 2015, 11:04:40 am »

I second this. The annoyance with this is losing the area music, as well as being locked out of the Piece of Power in its duration. If it can give a visible cue instead of changing the music to know when the effect wears off like the Piece of Power does with the flashing sword icon, and if its effect doesn't disable the Piece of Power from dropping, that would be great. If having both effects at the same time is problematic, just have them overwrite each other.

I'm curious, couldn't you simply choose not to pick it up or just wait until the effect wears off if you do by mistake? Though it would be interesting if both items were to double both defense and offense at the same time. Removing that annoying theme would also be worthwhile as a separate patch for those who don't like it and want to hear the dungeon theme instead.

100

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: February 17, 2015, 12:10:50 am »

I've got a good one! How about either editing or replacing the enemy sprites from the Final Fantasy games 1-6 with ones from Bahamut Lagoon and Rudra no Hihou so that they have animated attacks instead of just flashing which always bugged me? Final Fantasy 6 (SNES) might be the easiest to work with since the graphics in that game look similar to those of Bahamut Lagoon and Rudra no Hihou. And while we're still at it, the character sprites and portraits could also be improved upon somewhat. Would such a thing be very hard to do?