Wip projects for the 7th saga (Snes)

[NARFNra]

Oh, that's really useful to have, 4ph! Thank you for linking!

I will try my best to get started with the work soon. I have also ordered a copy of the Elnard adventure guide book in case it contains any useful information, although that won't get here for a good while. Will we be mostly communicating through this thread?

[4ph]

I'm definitely interested in doing this and I can start later tonight. 7th saga is the only reason i started programming and I have many plans for it.

You should see this with SlidelJohn.

[slidelljohn]

@4ph
Thanks 4ph! That link to the dump should definitely help. 

Will we be mostly communicating through this thread?

Yes, this thread will work unless you prefer another way to communicate. Unfortunately my message box is full and the messages that I currently have I don't want to delete. I wish we could have more messages that we can store in our inboxes.
What I'm going to do is start looking at the asm and the data for the text and I'll see if I can create a text editor in c++.  I'm not sure if you have seen my different books/items that I have for elnard that I posted in this thread but I also have that elnard guide book. Not only do I have that book but I have 2 of those same guide books. The second book(y'all don't kill me) I cut all of the pages out so I could create perfect scans of each page so I could one day get it translated. I want to create a translated hd version of the book. I haven't scanned all of the pages yet but I might do that next year.

[Dulcineax28]

Yeah I guess they are horns after looking into it a little more.



But then you have images like this one that make them look like flat ears or wings or whatever...

That was some insane artistic liberty that American Lejes took lmfao. How did he go from looking like a pretty interesting Goat Demon to a....... Goblin?

[Sanedan56]

I have notes on the game text if you need them.

[Zorlac]

Yes! So excited work may be beginning on this!

I bought the two Elnard mangas along with the Encyclopedia of Adventure.

Wish I was a programmer because I would love to help. Will be watching this thread for sure.

[DragonAtma]

So I've been modding 7th Saga myself; I've certainly been making progress, but I will need a coder to get things done. I did look at your data collection.

Fortunately, I can handle design and graphics, so don't worry. Case in point:



Graphics are not 100% final (I think I should darken the Trick's base, and quite possibly add a bit of shadowing around the edge).

[slidelljohn]

Sorry for disappearing, I have been really busy.

I have made some modifications to elnard to load english text.
I had to transfer some asm and text compression table files from 7th saga to elnard to
get it to load 7th saga's english text. Here is a video showing the english text loading
in elnard.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/it84wb15qqyu650/elnard_english.mp4/file

Its probably not going to be completed for some time but hopefully sometime this year
we will have elnard in english. There will probably be 2 versions, one having the
japanese text translated to english and another using 7th saga's text.

@NARFNra
I need to make a tool for the text and I'm not sure when I'll have that ready but hopefully
you will still be willing to do the translation when I finish creating the tool for it.

@Sanedan56
I'm not sure if I need them or not but I'll definitely take a look at them if you want to share.

@DragonAtma
Nice work my friend! Glad to see you on here! If you are interested in working on new enemies
I can make a tool to not only add new gfx but I can also edit animations and AI scripts. I have all
enemy data and asm documented.

[DragonAtma]

Welcome back! A new tool would definitely be useful; I'm good with ideas and graphics, but not so much with snes coding.

There's some more info in my modding thread, https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=31858.0; naturally there are also some other mods, both complete and not-so-complete. Recolored Chimera is there too; like the knights, going up from 8 to 16 colors is definitely a good thing.

[4ph]

Great job, Slidelljohn! 
Elnard will finally have a translation worthy of the name!

[Sanedan56]

Here is the text used for the dialogue and menus, along with the flags the game uses.

I haven't touched this in a long time, so some of the information may be wrong.

"Buffer" is used for certain things like names, I believe.

Events may be a part of NPCs themselves; I'm pretty sure their using code.

The flags offset is at 7E4E00.

The game separates the flags into event flags, treasure flags, and hidden flags. The event and treasure flags take up exactly 100 bytes. The hidden flags are used for hidden objects. The hidden flags themselves are used in an indiscriminate order, and presumably use up the rest of the allowed ram (Flags are two bytes long).

A note about the game flags; The first few are for which character you're using. If you plan on adding an eight character, you will have to rework the game flags, as the first one is used for yes/no questions.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/55f901omrz1szif/AADP0xApDKJ9EUQM_SptpGpAa?dl=0

[RomerPlayer]

Hi all. I want to request for this Hack, IF it´s possible:

* Can you please change the warrior sprite for something more Knight style / "Knigthy"?
- Fluted Kninght armor: https://imgur.com/30AfBco
   https://imgur.com/7vTH7cQ

* Please add more weapons like: Rapiers, Estocs, Messers, Longsword, bastard sword etc.

* For the weapons sprite, I suggest this:  https://www.samuraikatanaswordphilippines.com/photos/Custom-Made-Albion-Borderwatch-Ithilien-Ranger-Longsword/IMG_3610.JPG

* For the default sprite shield: https://www.swordsandarmor.com/images/SN-Lion_Shield.jpg

Regards!

[xeenmusic]

I haven't been able to locate any sort of scan/PDF of the Elnard "Encyclopedia of Adventure." I used to have most of the NTT "Final Fantasy" books, and I know that they, like the Elnard one, have somewhat English translations of characters and locations that are completely independent of the USA Translations and usually official, and many other key terms, and sometimes even enemies. I know it might be a chore, but is there a way that you could make a list of all the official English names (of anything) that was given in the Encyclopedia?

Also, I'm the one who added most of this information to the Cutting Room Floor article with the JP vs. USA stats, as well as the unused monsters and locations (stuff which I knew 15 years ago, but never shared until recently). I know the JP ROM is arranged differently than the USA Rom. Have you noticed in either any more information related to the unused enemy data? Are there enemy graphics present that simply were not called? Is there more AI that isn't called? Is there any more leftovers from the nver finished locations?
https://tcrf.net/The_7th_Saga


Thanks,
Andrew

[slidelljohn]

4ph@
Thanks 4ph! Its not going to be completed anytime soon but I will get this completed.

Sanedan56@
Thanks for the files! I did look into some of this before but I never finished. This will
definitely help.

RomerPlayer@
This is probably something you are going to have to do but when I create a level editor for
7th saga it will make things easier to add things to the game like new GFX and items/weapons.

xeenmusic@
Do you have a email address for me to contact you?
"Have you noticed in either any more information related to the unused enemy data?"
Yes, I have found out what 1 of the unknown data bytes are for. The 1st unused enemy byte
is for the Fortitude Stat.

Fortitude Stat - As you level up and get stronger enemies get frightened and decide to run away more often.
                 The higher the Fortitude the less likely the enemy will run in the next 1-4 turns.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/p1yskxlhb1ugkv1/Fortitude_Stat.txt/file

I also posted something for enemy encounters on DragonAtma's 7th saga page.

[Sanedan56]

You're welcome.
I don't think I can help you with more, certain things going on has prevented me from working on this.

[slidelljohn]

I definitely understand. I'm pretty sure I have everything I need for a text editor now I just need to build it. It's gonna be interesting playing elnard in English to see how everything plays out to the end of the game. I always wondered which I would like better but I'm leaning towards 7th saga because I like a challenge.

[xeenmusic]

xeenmusic@
Do you have a email address for me to contact you?
"Have you noticed in either any more information related to the unused enemy data?"
Yes, I have found out what 1 of the unknown data bytes are for. The 1st unused enemy byte
is for the Fortitude Stat.

Fortitude Stat - As you level up and get stronger enemies get frightened and decide to run away more often.
                 The higher the Fortitude the less likely the enemy will run in the next 1-4 turns.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/p1yskxlhb1ugkv1/Fortitude_Stat.txt/file

I also posted something for enemy encounters on DragonAtma's 7th saga page.

I tried to PM you, but your inbox is full on here.
My email is xeenmusic@gmail.com.
I'm really interested in knowing the English versions of the names from the encyclopedia, and if there are any more remnants of deleted things in either the English or Japanese data.

(I actually hacked out the enemy encounter formations, and which regions/dungeons call up which encounter sets. But I never compared them between JP and USA versions.)

[KobaBeach]

Friend of Narf's here, best of luck with the retranslation. If you need help I'll try to give a hand.

[frikandel]

Is there a short how-to how to apply the patches in order to get the Elnard sprites in?

Edit; nevermind, got it! These hacks are brilliant, I always suspected all those years ago (30 almost!) that something was "off" about some sprites in the US version, especially how Lejes' horns never seemed to line up. Much appreciated!

Edit2; is there any special text or data concerning Lejes? Seeing as he's the only "unique" character; you've got 2 mages, 2 physical tanks, 2 all-round warriors and then there's Lejes. I always saw him as the "seventh" character for some reason.

[DragonAtma]

After being distracted by randomizers, I returned to working on my 7th Saga mod. Unfortunately, since I'm roughly doubling the number of monsters, I need to locate and edit the table for what graphics are used by what monsters. Is there room to expand it? I'm currently at 146 monsters (technically 141, but Doros, Gariso, and Gorsia have multiple entries), but that may increase a bit.

Also, if anyone's up for a bit of coding, I'd like to change the stat gains. Much like in Ogre Battle, they're too limited (the gap between 2-4 speed and 3-5 speed is too big). Ideally, I'd use the following formula:

stat_gain = int((base_gain + rand[0..31]) / 16)

That way, we can tweak stat gains by a fraction of a point.

Finally, there's also monster palettes; IIRC they were discussed, but not actually linked to. if they were linked to (and I missed it), I apologize. EDIT 2: Found 'em.

EDIT: If we want, we can also give a bit of an Elnard boost (for everyone, naturally) by changing stat gains to int((base_gain + level + rand[0..31]) / 16). Right now, though, I think we should stick to the first formula.

---

(September 21)
So I discovered something new (to me, anyway) about 7th Saga modding.

If you look at Dr. Fail's rom data guide on Gamefaqs (specifically the monsters section), you'll see that the first and 38th columns are described as unknown. slidelljohn figured out that the first one was related to monsters running (which makes sense, seeing how well it correlates with how far through the game they show up). But the 38th? Just now I realized it runs a script (or something similar).

More specifically, with that byte 00 for everyone (a default value for modding), Romus would still be there after I beat him. But if I change that one, single byte to 0B (the vanilla value), after he's beaten I get the standard  "The curse of Romus is gone".