Wip projects for the 7th saga (Snes)

[4ph]

This patch uses my beta decompressed graphics patch to add
the uncensored Elnard graphics back into 7th saga. You must apply both patches for it to work. Here is a pic of the graphics that were added back into 7th saga.


For this beginning of year you make a happy person to have the uncensored version of "Elnard"! 
Thank you so much!!
Regards,
4PH.

[slidelljohn]

You're welcome!  I have some more stuff coming soon.

I still need to redo my decompressed gfx patch and when I do I will upload both patches to romhacking.net. I have considered translating elnard to English. I could do all of the programming but I can't translate jap to eng.  I could use google translator but some of the translation wouldn't be perfect. If I gather all of the Japanese scripts for elnard is there anybody on here that can translate them for me to English? I'll do all of the programming if someone can translate it for me.

[IrohDW]

That is some great progress. Right now I am working on some bug fixes for my 7th Saga romhack and adding some features to my editor. Once I am finished, I intend to release what I've got and see what people think of it. I look forward to working together with you guys soon.

[slidelljohn]

I updated this project page today. I have decided to change this wip page from mmx and 7th saga to just a wip page for 7th saga. I still plan to work on mmx and create new things for it. I changed it because I didn't want to clutter up this page with 2 different games.

That is some great progress. Right now I am working on some bug fixes for my 7th Saga romhack and adding some features to my editor. Once I am finished, I intend to release what I've got and see what people think of it. I look forward to working together with you guys soon.

I look forward to working with y'all as well.

I am currently putting together all of my documents for 7th saga and then I'll put together a editor for the maps. I'm also going to have my decompression patch remade sometime in the next few weeks.

The next patch that I will release will have ether a new town or a new dungeon. I already have 7th saga documented to be able to do this and I should have a patch out for it sometime next week. I might even make a little side quest to get a item that will cause the towns to blink blue for the apprentices.

[slidelljohn]

Here is a map viewer for 7th saga. It still needs a lot of work but I figured I would release the early version for everyone to look at. After I optimize it I will have it load more stuff. Probably won't be able to do any more work on it till next week but hopefully soon I'll have it to where we can edit and save new towns and dungeons. It's just a matter of time till we have a fully functioning 7th saga editor.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/hhlrodtdpcq2jks/7th_saga_map_viewer.rar

Not sure how fast it will be on everyone's computer but it works really good on mine. It loads the images faster than I thought it would because the code isn't fully optimized yet. I tried my best to fit it on a 1080 screen for everybody to be able to see everything. Let me know how it works.

[IrohDW]

I tried running the map viewer, but I got the following error:

This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "windows" in "".
Reinstalling the application may fix this problem


By the way, have you considered using a version control system such as Git for your editor? It makes working on projects with multiple people a lot easier. Instead of needing to create a new mediafire download every time you make a change to the code, all you have to do is put your project on a Git account and use the Git push, commit, and add commands and your project will be updated automatically.

[slidelljohn]

4ph reported the bug this morning and I was able to fix it I just didn't have time to post the fix for it. Here is the fix:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/67yevswde3tcch3/platforms.rar

After you unzip this file just put the whole folder in the same location as the .exe. All it was missing was a .dll but it has to be inside of that platforms folder. All of the other .dll's are in the correct location it was just that one dll that needs to be in that folder. I build my test programs with QT c++ and since I had QT installed on my computer it was working for me because my pc had that file already with the .dll. Let us know if it works and what you think about it.

And yes I could use git but right now I'm just trying to get a basic foundation of the editor built before I post the source. The editor will definitely be open source once it's up and running. You are more than welcome to have the most recent source if you want me to pm it to you but there is a lot of testing going on for the editor so the source code looks like a complete mess.

If anyone has any speed issues when changing maps they should let me know so I can get it working perfectly. I have a lot more stuff to add but I want zero slowdowns. It works great on my pc with zero slowdown but it might not work as good for others.

I have never really used a level editor before so if anyone has any recommendations on what the editor should have they should let me know so I can make the best user interface possible for future developers. Screen shots of other editors or examples of other editors features that everyone would like to see should be posted on here. I want to build a great editor for everyone to use so the more ideas that everyone can give me the better.

With the next update this coming week I'll have it load some more maps and I'll have it load all of the smaller tile sets that make up the maps. It uses 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, and 128x128 tile sets for the screens. After I get all the next update up and running with no slowdowns I'll probably start populating the maps with all of the people, doors, and items. Once all of the maps and tile sets data is fully viewable I'll work on the enemy and character data. I won't have it actually edit anything until I get everything viewable first because I need to know exactly how I want the editor to rip apart the rom apart and put it back together. Also I already have a fully working graphics decompressor/compressor working but this editor will probably use my graphics decompressed patch because of the extra features it adds. There really is no need for graphics compression on any snes game anymore.

[mrrichard999]

Hmm, I can see a possibility for bonus dungeons or boss rush areas

[Sanedan56]

This was on my list of games that I had planned to hack. I would be more than happy to help you with this if you
would like.

[Special]

Everything about this looks awesome and this is one of my favorite games too! Though I'm not sure how I feel about looking at Wilme's ass crack for an entire game.

[slidelljohn]

mrrichard999:
Yes definitely a possibility. There is some extra room in the existing maps plus the data is easy enough to edit to create whole new maps.

Sanedan56:
Anybody is more than welcome to help. The more ideas the better for me improving 7th saga. What kind of hacking skills do you have? Can you do any c++? I'm using QT creator for the editor.

Special:
Thanks! Always glad to see that other people appreciate 7th saga. It really is a better game than what some people say about it. It was definitely not one of the best rpg's on the snes but it was always one of my favorites. I don't really like elnards version of the graphics but I'll probably include them to give people the option for them to use them if they want to.

Here is a pic showing all of the tiles sets that are loaded now.
I'm not really sure how I want to set up the tile sets for editing but I'm thinking about cutting each set down in half or at least the 4 big tile sets. I still need to optimize the code for loading all of the pixels because it's still not as fast as I want it to be. The 63 that is in the line edit is the milliseconds it takes on average for the tile sets to load when changing maps and that is on my fast pc. On my slower pc it takes about 120 milliseconds. I can definitely cut that time down a lot and I'm going to try to get it around 16 milliseconds. I have 3 different things to do to optimize the code but it's going to take a complete rewrite of the algorithms to get it loading faster. I'm going to try to get this part of the editor done by Thursday if I can. Once these algorithms are optimized they can easily be transferred over to create new editors for other snes games. I'll probably end up creating tutorials on how they work so they can be recycled to other future projects.


I really need some good ideas on how to set everything up for the ui in the 7th saga editor. What snes editors have the best user interface for editing the games? What snes editors have the best functions for editing the tile sets?

[justin3009]

Temporal Flux for Chrono Trigger is probably one of the best editors and GUI's I've seen overall for any kind of editor. I'd take a look at that one.

[slidelljohn]

Awesome thanks! I'll definitely look at it. I need all of the ideas I can get because I have never really used a snes level editor before. I'll probably end up downloading a bunch of them so I can get a lot of ideas on how I can go about designing this one.

[Special]

@slidelljohn

I think it's such an underrated game, I play it regularly, and with so many team combination the reply value is very high, solo challenges are also fun to do. Hard as balls though, it blows my mind that on my cart of 7th Saga, there's still a save on it from back when I was a young kid, and at the very end of the game as a solo Wilme, I don't think I have the patience anymore to play it on anything but an emulator nowadays, because you know, turboing though random battles, save checkpoints, and even save scumming those RNG level ups. I wish more games were as hard as this honestly.

[slidelljohn]

Definitely underrated but I do understand why. Hopefully with this editor, these new updates to the game engine, and increasing the difficulty by adding new strategy to the battles people would appreciate it more. This is definitely one snes game that would see some big improvements through a editor and these new features. I like 7th saga a lot and I think it will always have a high replay value and with all of this new stuff the replay value will be even higher.

[KingMike]

I don't know if 7th Saga was the right kind of challenge. I don't think you should have to grind just to prevent RNG from killing your party in one turn any time it feels like it (yes, fully healed to dead in one shot), which is how the game felt to me (at least the English version).

[slidelljohn]

I actually didn't mind the grinding but it could definitely use a lot more strategy inside of the battle system instead of just gaining levels to be able to beat the enemies. When I recreate my version of the game I do plan on making it harder than what it is now but it will be a more balanced and strategic game. It will definitely have less fully healed to dead in one shot. What do you think can be changed or added to improve gameplay and strategy within the battle system?

[mrrichard999]

Is it possible to add lower case letters on the name entry screen? Also would there be enough room in the ROM to even add an 8th... playable character?

[slidelljohn]

Yes both of those are possible to do through assembly hacking and there is plenty of room in the rom to do it. I never thought about having the lowercase letters for the name selection screen I might consider creating a patch for that. You can definitely add a lot more than 7 characters but that will also take some assembly hacking. That one I have considered doing. I plan on changing so much stuff there probably isn't going to be 7 characters or 7 runes or 7 of whatever else that there is in the game so the 7th in 7th saga might become pointless to have in the game title. Something I may or may not do is change the name of the game. I have thought about changing the name to Mystic Saga. That would make it a combination of Mystic Ark and 7th Saga.

[mrrichard999]

A patch is in queue for the large font in the game to be a lot more easier to read. I swapped out the font for the one used in Illusion of Gaia so the dialogue wouldn't be so eye straining. - https://www.romhacking.net/fonts/180/



I also was messing around with the smaller font too but all I could find in regards to font with the shadow that isn't real bad was one from Flashback. I gotta see if I can find something more suitable to the game that has shading with it.