[ObiKKa]

This news is glorious indeed, cheers folks!

Honestly I didn't expect any new translation for the holidays. Actually up until today I wasn't in the mood to play videogames, but you at Transcorp really know how to push my buttons! So I have no choice but to taste some Herakles goodness. ^^

Kudos to all the staff at Transcorp and, more generally, to every single good souls who took part in recent projects: I mean this year has been really good for fan-translations.

YES! Congratulations on adding another top-quality fan-translation to an epic RPG to add to the cream of the SNES RPG's crop! Thank you to Nightcrawler and nanashi, especially the latter for carrying over the conventions of the translations and story-telling styles from the older Glory of Heracles games over to this iteration!
It's also fabulous that the English language localizations of this full series are now completed. Wow.

There were enough other required utilities to work on that I was not interested in such endeavors. I was far more interested in developing a universal VWF modular system with it to work with all games. I believe I succeeded on that front and I shall never need to code another one again.

Wow, man. This is a really significant development for the SNES romhacking community. And I for one can't wait to see how it would help the other programmers (besides yourself hopefully) to speed up their translation insertion and romhacking efforts in practical ways!

[ChronoMoogle]

Such an awesome release and the text and menus look so polished... Better than the original tbh. Big up for this! 

[etking]

The forecast command is owned by Heathery and the merchant is the character where the weather bug occurred first. I can also provide a screenshot of the yellow text on top of the screen which says something like blgitblg:blgitblg: tlefield:tlefield:tlefield: which seem to be variables.

[heratio]

Great job on this.  I've only played a few hours and I'm sure it will take me a month or two to finish, but I am really impressed.

[Fredde]

Is there anything like a manual or FAQ for this game in english that explains the game mechanisms? The only one on GameFAQs seems to be just a very basic walkthrough. I'm curious about what stuff like "FLV", skills, "area points", etc, mean, and I want to be sure that I'm not missing any menus or commands available. Or will the game itself explain it in due time?

[Nightcrawler]

The forecast command is owned by Heathery and the merchant is the character where the weather bug occurred first. I can also provide a screenshot of the yellow text on top of the screen which says something like blgitblg:blgitblg: tlefield:tlefield:tlefield: which seem to be variables.

Thanks. I figured out what it was now.

Is there anything like a manual or FAQ for this game in english that explains the game mechanisms? The only one on GameFAQs seems to be just a very basic walkthrough. I'm curious about what stuff like "FLV", skills, "area points", etc, mean, and I want to be sure that I'm not missing any menus or commands available. Or will the game itself explain it in due time?

No manual is available at present. The translator does have the original game manual and talked about a potential translation of it at one point, but it never happened for some reason. Perhaps I can inquire again if he would still want to do it.

'FLV' is the body's fitness level. Each body can get to a maximum of level 10. Their stats will go up with each level (this is on top of your character's regular level and stats) and their abilities will be unlocked.

Each body also has a skill level for a particular weapon type they are skilled with. This level is fixed and does not change. Later bodies will have higher skill levels. Some special bodies can are skilled with all and can use any weapon effectively.

The area points are a running stat like the kill count, bad actions etc. I don't think the effect the game in any way that I recall. for how much of the overworld you've covered. Why they decided to do it in point form like that doesn't make much sense to me.

[Fredde]

Thanks, that's very useful information! I think I can figure out most of the rest through playing. Some of the mechanics seem somewhat similar to those in Glory of Heracles III. Just a few more questions:

What's a "bad action/event"?

Does using skills come with a cost of some kind (MP or HP loss, or something else), or can I use them all to my heart's content?

Is the "map" button (Y by default, as I understand) supposed to work right away, or will it only work after a certain point in the game? I'm close to the beginning of the game, and right now nothing seems to happen when I push the map button.

[Nightcrawler]

What's a "bad action/event"?

Immoral actions. It's mostly confined to stealing and being mean to people during conversation when given the option. It might also cover failing to greet Hermes, but I forget now.

Does using skills come with a cost of some kind (MP or HP loss, or something else), or can I use them all to my heart's content?

Mostly, they are cost free. However some abilities do come with unique penalties when used. One may cause you to fall asleep, or make your ally unconscious if you throw them at the enemy. Some can be used only at night to be effective. Quirky things like that. You'll have to try them out.

Is the "map" button (Y by default, as I understand) supposed to work right away, or will it only work after a certain point in the game? I'm close to the beginning of the game, and right now nothing seems to happen when I push the map button.

You don't have a map yet. When you get the 'Eye of the gods', you can call the map on the overworld.

[Gideon Zhi]

Hey, nice! Congratulations! I know how long of a road it's been and the kind of work that must have gone into this. You deserve mad respect!

[Fredde]

Immoral actions. It's mostly confined to stealing and being mean to people during conversation when given the option. It might also cover failing to greet Hermes, but I forget now.
Mostly, they are cost free. However some abilities do come with unique penalties when used. One may cause you to fall asleep, or make your ally unconscious if you throw them at the enemy. Some can be used only at night to be effective. Quirky things like that. You'll have to try them out.
You don't have a map yet. When you get the 'Eye of the gods', you can call the map on the overworld.

Thanks for the info! And thanks once again for the translation!

[Nightcrawler]

Happy New Year everyone!

Fantastic work, just wanted to drop Nightcrawler a big shout out for completing this. I don't know why the article I sent Nintendo Life remains unpublished, I will ask the editor why it wasn't published, this certainly is more than deserving of attention.

Did anything ever come of this? I appreciate the effort nonetheless. I imagine they probably don't want to associate with our hobby for various reasons.

[Pennywise]

Nintendo Life appears to be an unofficial fan site covering various video game news. So, no big whoop if they don't feature your work as I'm sure other fan sites already have.

Since I've posted, it wouldn't do to not congratulate on your hard work coming to fruition. I liked your comment about you viewing your work as creating art. I've actually thought the exact same thing for what I do.

Now, here's an idea that Kay and yourself might be open to. I mean no disrespect to DaMarsMan's work on Heracles 3, but wouldn't it be cool to have the same VWF hacks for 3? Something to at least look at for feasibility, perhaps?

[Gemini]

The article is actually up and kickin':
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/01/a_trio_of_super_famicom_rpg_classics_are_now_playable_in_english

[Synnae]

Thank you for translating the game. The sensation you get from playing a good ol' SNES RPG is always pleasant and magical.

[KingMike]

Now, here's an idea that Kay and yourself might be open to. I mean no disrespect to DaMarsMan's work on Heracles 3, but wouldn't it be cool to have the same VWF hacks for 3? Something to at least look at for feasibility, perhaps?

I'd imagine 3 being a bit more of a pain due to, I'm almost sure a tilemap-based system (and that always-displayed HUD would probably further eat into available tile space).

[thr]

just saw this. thanks a lot for your great work.

[Nightcrawler]

The article is actually up and kickin':
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/01/a_trio_of_super_famicom_rpg_classics_are_now_playable_in_english

Ah, good to see. I did some searches and was quite surprised to see how many more news outlets there are these days that cover this community. Much better than the old days! Yay for progress!

I'd imagine 3 being a bit more of a pain due to, I'm almost sure a tilemap-based system (and that always-displayed HUD would probably further eat into available tile space).

GOH4 menus were an 8x8 tilemap-based system too. In any event, that project is not mine and I do not have any code for that project. So, highly unlikely there.

[aqualung]

A couple of unimportant things:

In regard to a user who asked some comments ago about a cheat to disable random encounters (in case he's still looking for one), I found one here: http://snesrpggaming.weebly.com/goh4---cheat-page.html

Another thing... Is there a manual scan or a snapshot of the GOH4 overworld available somewhere? I've been searching for quite some time and only found GOH2 and the gameboy GOH overworlds.

[Nightcrawler]

Another thing... Is there a manual scan or a snapshot of the GOH4 overworld available somewhere? I've been searching for quite some time and only found GOH2 and the gameboy GOH overworlds.

What's wrong with the in-game map? It shows the whole overworld and places of interest. I only have the virtual console version manual and there are very few images of any kind in that let alone a map.

I've contacted nanashi about his current feelings on a manual translation since people have mentioned it. We'll see what he has to say on that, and if their is a map in somewhere in his materials.


EDIT:
Here is a scanned copy of the map that came with the original game. It probably won't be of much use as the in-game map is better, I think.

[replicant1027]

Congratulations on finishing this translation Nightcrawler. I've been following the scene since 1999 and I know this has been a long time in the making.

I know this might be a silly question, but I was wondering why the titlescreen hack didn't read as "The Glory of Heracles" in the title like all other translations for the other games in the series. Was it perhaps an artistic choice?