Wip projects for the 7th saga (Snes)

[redxiii]

Awesome, I just started to learn about the Elnard (Produces) series, it seems very interesting. Although I've seen multiple patches that try to balance the game, this translation option of the original is the only way to truly experience the original in English, which I prefer! So, thank you and I hope to give the game a try soon, although it will be hard to find the time.

[slidelljohn]

You're welcome! I hope you enjoy it when you get time to play it. If you find any bugs/issues with the text just let me know and I'll fix it and document it so it's fixed in the official release.

[Cureless]

Hi. I don't know if this will help you, but I'm playing as Kamil with Valsu as my second character using your patch and when I get to Belaine where you can buy the Muramasa, I go to the guy who sells the sword and then the game screen proceeds to go completely dark and will not respond to any commands from my controller after choosing 'Yes'. I was using Retroarch and the bsnes-hd beta core if that helps.

That said, thanks for putting that patch up. I'm enjoying it very much!

[JKPhage]

I'm stoked that someone decided to just take the path of least resistance and port the English translation over to Elnard. My only suggestion is in regards to the magic leveling bug that was discovered. There's a patch that reverts the 7th Saga leveling algorithm to the original version and *also* fixes the magic bug, so if someone were to know how to fix this same bug that existed in the original Elnard and whip us up a patch that's compatible with the translation I'd be over the moon. For such an infamous game that would be pretty much the definitive way to play.

Any chance someone involved with the translation project is looking into this, or someone else who has a little hacking knowhow might be willing to hook us up?

[slidelljohn]

@Cureless
Thank you for reporting the bug. There was multiple bugs for the 3 weapon smiths in the town of Belaine and those
should be fixed. I created a new patch with the bug fixes and I gave you credit for finding the bug.
Can you confirm the bug that you were experiencing is fixed??
Beta.2a Patch

@JKPhage
This patch will be a stand alone patch with only the english text hack. Now a separate patch can be created to work
with the english patch but I dont know if I would be interested in making such a patch. I dont recall hearing about
that bug before. Can you give me more details about what the bug is?

[JKPhage]

@JKPhage
This patch will be a stand alone patch with only the english text hack. Now a separate patch can be created to work
with the english patch but I dont know if I would be interested in making such a patch. I dont recall hearing about
that bug before. Can you give me more details about what the bug is?

I couldn't tell you the specifics myself, but it's mentioned in regards to this patch: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/264/

I don't know if there's some way to easily cross-reference the changes made in this patch against the standard array, but as I've gathered, the stat growth rates for the US version were nerfed severely while monster stats were amped up to create more difficulty, but someone noticed that even in the original game, apparently magic stats didn't grow as they were intended due to some sort of bug, making magic-using characters severely underpowered without undue amounts of grinding.

As I mentioned, I certainly wouldn't say to make it part of this patch inherently, as it's a translation, and tacking on gameplay changes to a translation puts a sour taste in people's mouths most of the time, but if it's an easy enough tweak to be made by fixing a byte or two that would restore the developers intended growth rate for magic-users then it certainly wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to include as an optional extra patch that's made to work with this translation and allow for a definitive "as-intended" version of the game.

If it's not something you're interested in doing then I get that, but I felt that I should put it out there in case anyone else might wish to do so themselves to deliver the final polish to such a version of the game. At the end of the day it would be simple enough for someone else to release an addendum patch to your translation if they so desire, so it's really your call if you want to, or if you're able to.

[slidelljohn]

@JKPhage
It sounds like they are saying it fixes the power stat for magic users and not the magic power stat. So this would make it a power stat bug for magic users. I'll take a look at it sometime in the next couple of days. If I find it I'll post a patch for you. 

Honestly to me it sounds like this isn't a bug but something that the developers intended to happen. But it could also be a bug it's just my opinion. My favorite main character is esuna and I never had any issues beating the 7th saga with her. I first beat the game around 94-95 when I was 11-12. I used her to beat the game because of her magic and not her attack power.

[Cureless]

@Cureless
Thank you for reporting the bug. There was multiple bugs for the 3 weapon smiths in the town of Belaine and those
should be fixed. I created a new patch with the bug fixes and I gave you credit for finding the bug.
Can you confirm the bug that you were experiencing is fixed??
Beta.2a Patch

Yep! That did it! Thank you for the fix. I'll let you know if I come across anything else as I continue to play through it. I appreciate the work you've put into this patch.

[slidelljohn]

You're welcome!
Thanks for reporting the bug!
I'll try to update any bugs that are reported as soon as I can so everyone can play Elnard without any issues.

These were all asm text pointer bugs. All bugs should be gone after I can sit down and disassemble the 2 banks that
have all of these asm pointers. I have to disassembly those two banks for Elnard and the 7th saga. I might have the 7th saga one done already (I need to look at my docs) but I know I don't have Elnards disassembled yet.

[Cureless]

I think I've found another bug: no matter what type of shop in any town, when I go to buy something, the text sometimes appears as random symbols. I notice it happen a lot more when buying weapons and armor while trading out for upgraded equipment and this more often than not happens with a partner character in tow.

If you need any other details about the bug, please let me know.

[slidelljohn]

I wont have time tonight to look at it but Ill try to get a fix tomorrow night if I can get the bug to show on screen.

[Cureless]

Sounds good. I have one more bug to add: when trying to hand over the Crystal of Peace to the King of Telaine, the text that appears when you have to tell him 'Yes' or 'No' is all scrambled. Also, when selecting 'Yes' the game crashes to a black screen much like with the Muramasa weapon dealer.

[slidelljohn]

Awesome, thanks! 
I'll get these fixed as soon as possible and upload them. Hopefully tomorrow when I get home from work I'll have the new beta patch up.

[DragonAtma]

I've been somewhat sidetracked by other projects, so I haven't been giving my 7th saga mod the attention it deserves.

That said, during my last attempt I added a new monster (in this case a palette swap of Android) but haven't managed to get them a new palette. You may not realize it, but this is a battle with an android and a cyborg:



I do know that palettes are stored from 10000 to 131FF (with a currently unusable area from 13200 to 135FF), but "assign palette X to enemy Y" will be a pain; apparently the palette is always the x in A9 x 95 38 22 8B 76 C2 (or, going by the hermit data, "LDA x, STA 38, JSL C2768B"), so with any luck I'll be able to handle it.

[slidelljohn]

I'll see if I can put something together for you later today to help with the palettes. Did you look at what I posted for post #139?

[DragonAtma]

Thanks.

And yes, I reread the entire topic. I do have the enemy encounters; I commented on it a bit for self-usage. Unfortunately, I don't know asm, so asm code will not help me unless it's commented.

The commenting (specifically the "COLOR PALETTE" comment in Hermit's data) helped somewhat; sadly, the code is a bit different for Android (A9 C3 85 58 22 8F 66 C2), so I'll have to wait for tonight's assistance (thanks in advance).

[slidelljohn]

I don't know if it's been found before, but E7236 through E8235 records where overworld encounters are. It's 64 columns wide, and RHN doesn't like that sort of width, so here's a link instead:

https://postimg.cc/hzvpqPw5

As you can see, the staff at Produce were very generous in assigning encounters (not only are mountains almost completely assigned encounters, but they spill into the ocean so much there's a solid line of encounters form Barluca (x12,x13,x14) and Eygus (x06) to Melenam (x07) to the main continent. There are also a few anomalies.

Apologies for the small font in the pic, but like the last decade-plus, my new year's resolution is 1920x1080.

I just thought this was odd that you posted this when I gave you all that data in that link I posted.

[DragonAtma]

The encounters are not an issue; I can change those very easily.

It's the palettes that are the problem, which is why the android and cyborg look identical.

[slidelljohn]

@Cureless
Sorry for the delay. I fixed the king bug in Telaine and the 2 for the weapon and armor shops for when buying a item
while having 2 people in your party.
Can you verify that this patch fixed the bugs you were experiencing?
beta patch 2b

@DragonAtma
Sorry I dont have a update yet but I still have a little bit of time before I go to sleep. If I'm able to gather the information you need for the palettes I'll post it tonight. If I cant get it done tonight I'll take another look at it after I get home from work tomorrow. Sorry if I don't remember but do you know how to run a trace for snes code? I would like to help you learn how to code. If I comment a bunch of code do you think you can figure out how it works?

[DragonAtma]

While learning to code would be nice, I doubt I have the patience to learn it; I've looked at the comments to the hermit file and they're clearly over my head. I know the absolute basics, but trying to figure it out makes my head swim; that's why I switched from C++ to easier-to-understand Python. It doesn't help that people use commands like BCS and RTL that make no more sense to me than B0 and 6B, yet lose the ability to be searched for in a hex editor. :/

There are some things I know I'll never be good at (such as cooking and most sports); unfortunately, SNES coding is likely in that list. It's possible, but unlikely.

I can probably figure out how to run a trace (I do have the debug version of snes9x 1.51), but there's a good chance I won't be able to understand it.