[aqualung]

Overall, not a legendary game, but a very good, solid game that could be made into an epic game with just a few changes.

Check out Daikaijuu Monogatari II (only in Japanese at the moment, but Dynamic Designs are working on a translation). It also has a built-in clock system (I don't know whether it's used in a similar way as TMZ or if it used in a different manner). The graphics are also incredibly good, specially the battles, which bear a lot of resemblance to the TMZ ones. It almost looks as if that game was made by the same guys as TMZ, but I don't think so because it was made by a company called Birthday and published by Hudson Soft.

And it has an impressive overworld in the most pure old school JRPG fashion. I cannot wait for it to be translated, really. I loved the first Daikaijuu Monogatari for the snes, and this one looks like the definitive JRPG for me.

[KingMike]

So what was the deal with the Shounen Jump version of this game? Was there any real difference with that game compared to the original?

Also congrats on finishing on such a large & daunting project considering what you had to do to translate everything. So what is next on your list of things to do or you're going to take a big break?

I'm not sure if there was major differences besides an additional location (my guess is you visit the Shonen Jump office or something?)

[Tom]

I've just reached to the Turtle Nation. How far am I in the game, more or less? Have I reached half of the game already? (I've read it's kind of short). I ask this in order to slow down a bit if I'm too fast. I've waited years for this game (as a lot of other people in this thread) and now I don't want to rush through it, I want to "savour" it, so to speak, hehe. Thanks.

Aqualung: It's the typical RPG length, probably somewhere between 30 to 40 hours to get to the end. Much less if you're playing from "Restart+," which unlocks after you beat the game (and makes playing through it again much easier).
October 31, 2017, 06:18:47 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

I'm not sure if there was major differences besides an additional location (my guess is you visit the Shonen Jump office or something?)

They removed one building and event from the original, in one of the towns, and replaced it with the Kodansha office. That's the publishing house that produces Shonen Jump. (There's also an additional character and item that don't exist in the original.)

[travel27]

Sorry for the silly question. If necessary, I'll open a thread apart to discuss these kind of things:

I've just reached to the Turtle Nation. How far am I in the game, more or less? Have I reached half of the game already? (I've read it's kind of short). I ask this in order to slow down a bit if I'm too fast. I've waited years for this game (as a lot of other people in this thread) and now I don't want to rush through it, I want to "savour" it, so to speak, hehe. Thanks.

It took me about 20 hours. 

I was level 60.  Folks, post your end game levels, I am curious!

Edit: Checked my game clock.  19:25.  But I admit, I sped through it at the end.  As AMAZING as the translation was (I can not stress that enough, THANKS), FEoEZ was not everything I hoped for.  Maybe just because of all the hype it had gotten for years, it had very lofty expectations.  But by the end I was sick of the random encounters and probably missed 2 or 3 levels running from everything just to get to the last boss.  The last dungeon, IMO, was quite poor.  Just reusing a previous one.  Again, a very good game, just not legendary as I had heard for years.  I think simply adding viewable enemies a la Chrono trigger, alone, makes an absolutely huge difference.

[Melchior]

It took me about 20 hours. 

I was level 60.  Folks, post your end game levels, I am curious!

Edit: Checked my game clock.  19:25.  But I admit, I sped through it at the end.  As AMAZING as the translation was (I can not stress that enough, THANKS), FEoEZ was not everything I hoped for.  Maybe just because of all the hype it had gotten for years, it had very lofty expectations.  But by the end I was sick of the random encounters and probably missed 2 or 3 levels running from everything just to get to the last boss.  The last dungeon, IMO, was quite poor.  Just reusing a previous one.  Again, a very good game, just not legendary as I had heard for years.  I think simply adding viewable enemies a la Chrono trigger, alone, makes an absolutely huge difference.

Chrono trigger IS INDEED LEGENDARY
its also one of the largest ROMs for SNES... bigger then the Final Fantasy(s)
SNES:
FF2   = 1MB
FF3   = 3MB
CT, SMRPG, TerraNigma, SoM2 all = 4MB
FEoEZ is 7MB its the largest ROM/GAME I have seen O_O

[DougRPG]

The random encounter rate is normal compared to others Snes games, in my opinion. It's like Final Fantasy 6 (or less).
Nowadays this type of game is not so commom anymore, but games up to Playstation 2, like Dragon Quest 8, has an even higher encounter rate.
Remember, this is an 1995 game for Snes. You need to play it with a nostalgic feeling in your heart. Don't compare to recent games.
And don't compare with Chrono Trigger either. Chrono Trigger is an aberration. Chrono Trigger is a master piece among master pieces.

[Melchior]

Chrono Trigger is an aberration.
Chrono Trigger is a master piece among master pieces.

LEGENDARY among LEGENDARY!
and Square NEVER made a TRUE sequel to it either
Chrono Cross was ok more or less.. but its core story was based off the
visual novel ish game called Radical Dreamers not released outside of Japan!

there wwas many FAN based hacks/etc
Crimson Echoes was a good sequel, set maybe 2-5 years after CT... I played the
beta up to the end of available content... 
then there was Chrono Crisis was fixing to be a GREAT sequel about Chrono's son I think..

Square C&D'd to DEATH BOTH of those games and more..
its ALL profits these days before great games..
they have SENT CT to the game grave yard.. as they are milking the FF series..

[travel27]

I think with time and reflection I will view TMZ with more love.  Maybe I was grumpy for other reasons while playing.

I know the encounter rate was normal for snes, genesis and psx games, I have beaten nearly any English rpg from those platforms (99%) so I know it all too well.

In the end, the most memorable thing (top 3) for me is the music (GREAT!), dialogue (so funny) and gorgeous graphics within the town and solid world map.  The battle system, which I thought would stand out as the #1 aspect was probably the thing I will think about least when remembering the game.

EDIT: Is there anything special that happens on your birthday?  Mine is coming up in a week, is it worth loading up the game to check some things out even though I have beaten it...or not really?

Oddly enough, I played and beat Crimson Echoes just before TMZ and had a blast with that game, especially the story.
Chrono Ark looked really neat too.

[Melchior]

Chrono Ark?
never heard of that one..

[Tom]

travel27: Yeah, if you want an unconventional battle system in an RPG, you can pretty much forget the entire Tengai Makyou series. They are all pretty much by the book with a few largely superficial exceptions.

As I've said before, this game's day has long since passed, and the series is dead.  The market has changed too much. They don't make games like this anymore for a reason: practically nobody wants conventional RPGs these days.

I'm glad that you were able to beat it, and I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as you thought you would. It's a small consolation that TM Zero is not as grindy as its predecessors, but I do advise you to skip any of the other games in the series.

[tvtoon]

It took me about 20 hours. 

I was level 60.  Folks, post your end game levels, I am curious!

It took me exactly one day (24 hours) to get to the ending with almost everything, the only major exception is the King Bracelet because the only enemy that gives it is missable (Horned Beast at the sky island), and I talked with EVERYONE in the game, even read those hoaxes (some are interesting). I left with level 69, at level 70+ you master the game basically.
The only minor stuff to be done is waiting for the egg hatch.

About the new game+, I don't think it is so useful because you don't get the items and scrolls from the save.

[Ishkabibble]

Well really, the big draw of this game and the TMZ series as a whole is the comedy.  The primary reason I want to see the rest of the games translated.

[mziab]

A few more issues to report:

#1:
This text window disappears immediately when it's done displaying. And while it is totally easy to read this following along with the text, I believe a pause tag would be a good addition here.

#2:
The selection box enables you to switch between 6 options (including blanks), although there are only three valid ones. At first I thought it was a bad tag, but on further inspection, it seems the bug is also present in the original game, as seen here. If possible, it would be nice to fix this, though. Here is the srm, if you wish to pursue this.

#3:
In this conversation, both before and after, Juri uses the plural, whereas here she suddenly uses the singular "Hero of Fire", which seems a bit inconsistent.

[VicVergil]

Weird thing is that the some of the Shounen Jump building rooms exist, unused, in the original ROM. But yes, they removed some graphics, text, and even event code (mainly from the debug rooms rather than the replaced event) to make room for it. There's an NPC that appears at some times too.

I don't think you're missing on much of note.
Tomato's special Snes9X version which overlaid translated text onscreen without modifying the ROM could work in this case more than redoing the translation hacking just for a less popular alternate version that's not trivial to romhack (same with Ys V Expert, and Popful Mail).

[Tom]

#1:
This text window disappears immediately when it's done displaying. And while it is totally easy to read this following along with the text, I believe a pause tag would be a good addition here.

It already has TWO pause tags there already, believe it or not. The pause tags only create a text lag - they don't force a full stop.

But,{pause} greedy as I am,{pause} I went and
sealed it!{pause} Sorry about that!{pause}{pause}

I can't stop the text from proceeding automatically there - it is beyond my control.

#2:
The selection box enables you to switch between 6 options (including blanks), although there are only three valid ones. At first I thought it was a bad tag, but on further inspection, it seems the bug is also present in the original game, as seen here. If possible, it would be nice to fix this, though. Here is the srm, if you wish to pursue this.[/quote]

No, as you said, the original game was like that. Just getting those menus to display correctly at all took a LOT of trial and error, believe me. We're not trying to outdo the original programmers here. The game is touchy enough as it is. I'm not going to ask DDS to try to snatch something from the bottom of a standing house of cards!

[mziab]

No, as you said, the original game was like that. Just getting those menus to display correctly at all took a LOT of trial and error, believe me. We're not trying to outdo the original programmers here. The game is touchy enough as it is. I'm not going to ask DDS to try to snatch something from the bottom of a standing house of cards!

I understand. Sorry to keep bringing up issues you have no control over, I guess But better safe than sorry, right?

Just of out curiosity, how does the script for this window look? Is something obviously different from the others?

On a different note: what benefits does a higher coolness rating have? I haven't really done much to increase it. Is it really worth it or just something you can do for fun?

[Tom]

All of the script text follows the same format in the editor. Japanese text on the bottom, English on the top. The Japanese text does not have any tags for that line (or most lines), whatsoever. There are only a few exceptions in the Japanese script.

This line auto-prints VERY slowly in the original Japanese version. The best I could do to remedy this was to add a "faster" tag because English takes up many more characters and without it, the text would take ages to print out. However, the printing speed for some lines is variable, so if you pay attention, you'll notice that sometimes repeated lines are printed at a normal speed the first time, and ZIP by much more quickly when repeated the second time.

The lines are not arranged by "window," but are broken into segments of dialogue. The formatting to individual windows was done manually (by me). How the game determines auto-printed lines and how it combines some lines (which is also variable and was a real headache) is programmed deeper in the game's code, and isn't visible in the script).

Coolness is explained in the manual. (Did you download the English manual?) It affects a character's critical hit rate, their portrait art whenever they use skills, and certain events/dialogue throughout the game.

[mziab]

All of the script text follows the same format in the editor. Japanese text on the bottom, English on the top. The Japanese text does not have any tags for that line (or most lines), whatsoever. There are only a few exceptions in the Japanese script.

This line auto-prints VERY slowly in the original Japanese version. The best I could do to remedy this was to add a "faster" tag because English takes up many more characters and without it, the text would take ages to print out. However, the printing speed for some lines is variable, so if you pay attention, you'll notice that sometimes repeated lines are printed at a normal speed the first time, and ZIP by much more quickly when repeated the second time.

The lines are not arranged by "window," but are broken into segments of dialogue. The formatting to individual windows was done manually (by me). How the game determines auto-printed lines and how it combines some lines (which is also variable and was a real headache) is programmed deeper in the game's code, and isn't visible in the script).

Right, thank you for the clarification. Some game scripts are littered with control codes, while in turn granting some leeway in e.g. displaying menus and whatnot by modifying said control codes. Seems like this is not one of them. But after I'm done playing the game, I'll try to look into the inner workings of the some text routines to see if I can fix that original game bug. I hope you don't mind Never mind, it seems that those blanks fill up with new article titles as the plot progresses. In short, it's not really a bug, just a weird design decision.

Coolness is explained in the manual. (Did you download the English manual?) It affects a character's critical hit rate, their portrait art whenever they use skills, and certain events/dialogue throughout the game.

I actually did, though I haven't read through the whole thing for fear of spoilers. I was planning on reading it after my first playthrough, since I intend to revisit the game at a later date to see some of the stuff I'm sure to miss the first time around.

[Tom]

It'll be rather boring reading the manual after finishing the game, unfortunately.

It's mainly long-winded explanations of the game's interface, explained step by step, written as if it's explaining how to do things to your grandpa, who's never played a videogame before in his life. There are a few cool bits strewn in there, but any mystique they once held is pretty much gone once you've played as far as you have. There are some parts in the back of the manual that may interest you, but even those parts sort of assume that you're just about to start playing the game, not that you've finished.

[KingMike]

No, as you said, the original game was like that. Just getting those menus to display correctly at all took a LOT of trial and error, believe me. We're not trying to outdo the original programmers here. The game is touchy enough as it is. I'm not going to ask DDS to try to snatch something from the bottom of a standing house of cards!

I can understand that. I spent WAY too long trying to fix an original game menu bug in RPG Maker SFC, got close but after stuff just kept going wrong and realizing was spending far too much time on it I eventually decided to say FORGET IT on fixing it and settled for just an anti-freezing measure.