Translations: Glory of Heracles III version 1.1 patch is out!

[RHDNBot]

Update By: Kay

If you haven't played Glory of Heracles III yet, or are planning to replay it sometime, please check out our updated patch for this game. It's a neat Dragon Quest clone set in Ancient Greek with an amazing story and some legendary plot twists.

So legendary in fact that it got the game's writer Kazushige Nojima a job at Square as main writer for Final Fantasy VII and many Final Fantasy games onward. He had quite a lot of fans at Square and FFVII director Yoshinori Kitase even asked him to write a mystery plot like the one in Glory of Heracles III.

So if you're a fan of FFVII you might want to check out this earlier take on some of the same themes. Or if you like Dragon Quest you might enjoy this for the oldschool gameplay. JRPG experts might spot references to early DQ, Mother/Earthbound and Final Fantasy IV. This title really has a special place in JRPG history both looking back at earlier titles in the genre and influencing so many games to come after it.

It is a fan and critics' favorite even today in Japan. Hopefully with our translation it can get more recognition here in the West as well.

RHDN Project Page

Relevant Link: (http://www.romhacking.net/translations/967/)

[Fredde]

Does this patch fix the bug where the game locks up at a certain point? That was where I unfortunately got stuck when I played it with the old patch.

[Kay]

I'm not sure, since the version 1.0a with which I started when I did the review didn't lock up for me there. Version 1.1 still doesn't. I was playing on SNES9x, latest version.

But I made some changes around that place removing tags that weren't in the Japanese and which caused the game to output short mangled texts mixed in with regular text lines. Maybe with them gone the lock up will be too. Can you try your old save file to check if you can get past it now (and let me know if you did)? Maybe make a save state right before for your convenience as well, I know it's a bit of a walk before you get there. If the save state is around two button presses ahead of advancing the text to where it locks, new patches should fix the problem even with that save state.

A name still appears mangled in the battle text which I couldn't fix myself. Hopefully that isn't causing the lock up on your system. If the name is the problem, no patch will likely fix your save file because the names get written there. Although this one is a bit different, so maybe it would.

Anyway, thanks for pointing this out. I had read about the problem but since it didn't occur for me I thought it was already resolved. But maybe you could remove your spoiler so people won't accidentally read it. Since I'm now aware of the problem.

Edit: Thanks for editing. The link contains even more spoilers so please don't click if you haven't played the game yet. Starting with newer versions is save, no need to spoil yourself if you are you going to play the game for the first time.

[Fredde]

I tried my old save with the new patch, but the exact same bug is still there. From what I understand, it's maybe a bug in the original game, that has nothing to do with the translation patch? Also, that it has something to do with the names of the nameable characters? For the record, I named my nameable characters "Fergil" and "Rergil" (don't ask why...). What names were used when testing the patch, perhaps those were "good" names that doesn't cause the bug?

[Rhys]

You could try playing it with an unpatched version to try and get around that bug, then save immediately after you get past that point

[Fredde]

I tried the same savegame with an unpatched version, an it locked up in the exact same spot. So it seems that it's a bug in the original game, and has nothing to do with the translation?

[Pennywise]

Your save is messed up. Chances are it's more likely an issue caused by the translation than an original bug, but no se.

[Kay]

So apparently there was a problem with an earlier patch that now remains in your save file. Fiddling with the save file results in the game deleting the affected save so there is no easy fix. It has nothing to do with the names you gave your characters but with one of the fixed name characters whose name wasn't written correctly to the save file.

But as I understand it since version 1.0a at least the game can be played from start to end without the lockup if you use a new save file made with version 1.0a or later.

Version 1.1 is mostly about improvements to the text.

[Fredde]

Alright, I'm going to try playing the game again from the beginning (it's good enough to play twice!) with the new patch, and I'll report back if I have any troubles. Thanks for the help and advice!

[DaMarsMan]

Hey I wasn't expecting this. Cool.

The bug is actually in the original game. It's a problem with leveling up past a certain point starts writing into other parts of SRAM. Should be fixed in the 1.0a patch but if your sram file is corrupted there is nothing really we can do.

[Kay]

Hey Greg, I sent you the updated patch archive before posting it here via mail. Maybe you can upload it to DQTranslations when you find the time.

About the bug already being in the original version, I never read anything about such a lock up and google doesn't give me any info concerning such a bug either. Maybe Pennywise is right and it was introduced with the translation?

Looking at different save files with and without lock ups I think it has to do with one of the names. I'll send you my findings by mail.

[Fredde]

Hooray, I got past the bug-part and finished the game! I don't know if it was because I gave my characters shorter names,  if it was because I tried to stay at a low level through most of the game, if I did something different when I saved, or if it was simply because the bug is gone now, thanks to the latest patch. Of course, I hope it's the latter. Thank you people for translating this great game!

Now I'll just have to wait for GoH IV to get translated...

[ChronoMoogle]

Now I'll just have to wait for GoH IV to get translated...

Next to FEOEZ this is one of the translations I am mostly waiting for to be announced, so I am with you.

[Nightcrawler]

Me too. World premier WIP screenie to keep the Heracles fanfare alive!

[Fredde]

Me too. World premier WIP screenie to keep the Heracles fanfare alive!

It's a beautifull, beautifull game. I checked out the game's intro, and damn, it's really something else. Especially the music.

[DaMarsMan]

Looks great Nightcrawler. It seems you have been tackling that nasty HDMA menu stuff. I'm sorry that was out of my skillset. I wish I could have come up with some solutions that looked as nice as that!

[ChronoMoogle]

Hell yeah! Nice to see that this project is still in progress, Nightcrawler

[Nightcrawler]

Thanks. This game does not make it easy, that's for sure. This thread reminded me to throw a quick update up over at TransCorp with a few more WIP screens on the direction it has been going.

For any Heracles III fans who don't know, Kay whom translated Heracles III, has also translated the TransCorp's script for Heracles IV. So, they will have some consistency and I imagine will sound similar in tone when finally complete. It's a nice luxury for fan translations when sequels are able to be done by the same people.

[Gemini]

This thread reminded me to throw a quick update up over at TransCorp with a few more WIP screens on the direction it has been going.

You definitively should post some. That WIP screen looks quite sweet indeed and I wouldn't mind seeing more 8x8 vwf love.