Major Release ~ Tactics Ogre, For Real This Time
Tactics Ogre ~ Let Us Cling Together
# Posted on April 7, 2010, 7:16 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Yes, the actual English version is available now. Enjoy!

Miscellaneous ~ Pop! Goes The Weasel
Tactics Ogre ~ Let Us Cling Together
# Posted on April 1, 2010, 6:45 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Well, as I'm sure most people have realized by now, the Tactics Ogre patch translates the game into Al Bhed and not English. Happy April Fool's Day, everyone! Consider this my way of getting back at all the are-we-there-yet whiners I've had to deal with over the years. If I truly intended to delay the patch two weeks for every person who asked when it'd be done, well, you'd probably be getting it on Christmas instead.

What's no joke, however, is the very real amount work that went into this. The actual translation patch - which will be coming in a few days, don't worry - will be nearly identical to the one available now. The Al Bhed version contains the full English text, sort of - I just used a different table file to insert it into the rom. In fact, if I didn't have to get up for my crazy weekend work schedule in the morning, I'd probably get things ready to go right now! But them's the breaks, and a few more days won't kill you. And for those of you who are curious, yes, the Al Bhed version of the patch will be moved to the Tactics Ogre page's "Extras" subsection, where it will be preserved for all who care to try it.

See you in a few days!

Major Release ~ Tactics Ogre, available now (in Al Bhed!)
Tactics Ogre ~ Let Us Cling Together
# Posted on March 31, 2010, 8:31 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Frankly, I'm sick to death of looking at this thing. There are still a few minor cosmetic issues, all detailed in the readme, but they shouldn't really alter your enjoyment of the game on the whole.

You're welcome.

Progress ~ Tactics Ogre enters playtesting.
Tactics Ogre ~ Let Us Cling Together
# Posted on March 26, 2010, 5:25 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Yeah, that's right! There are still two or three small things that need fixing, but things are pretty tight as it is. My testers are loaded with cheats and will hopefully run it pretty quickly. We're hoping for a speedy test phase, followed by a release!

Progress ~ Tactics Ogre much closer
Tactics Ogre ~ Let Us Cling Together
# Posted on March 6, 2010, 10:24 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Attached below are screenshots of stuff I've fixed over the last couple of days. First one shows the finalized L-view character list, while the second shows an expanded S-view character portrait window and hacked "Start: Parameter" graphic. Expanding that window was a right pain in the arse, let me tell you - and it still doesn't function 100% correctly when the screen scrolls up or down. I've since fixed some major crashes, some nasty non-crash glitches, and a lot of really bizarre stuff, including stuff that worked breaking inexplicably later on down the line.

All that said, it's look a *lot* nicer, and aside from the introduction to politics if you let the game sit at the title screen twice, you can play up to the world map without encountering any Japanese or glitches. The Warren Report menus still need rather a lot of work, the dates still display in Japanese on the map, I haven't really tested much of the intermission stuff and the aforementioned political introduction is still broken (it's only displaying one line of four) but otherwise I think I've fixed most of the biggest issues. It's certainly a lot more stable than it used to be!

Progress ~ Alpha Has an Editor
Super Robot Wars Alpha
# Posted on Feb. 22, 2010, 5:56 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Please welcome Antialias, recruited in desperation from the depths of /m on 4chan, to the SRW Alpha project. When he passed me these images two weeks ago he'd edited up through the route merge at scenario 6 (of 57.) So I've uploaded a bunch of the stuff he sent me to showcase his work! The two snaps below are now in the game's gallery, along with nine more new snaps. Enjoy!

Progress ~ Tactics, Making Progress
Tactics Ogre ~ Let Us Cling Together
# Posted on Feb. 22, 2010, 5:35 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

In the last 24 hours or so, I've fixed a couple of major issues. One of them was hopefully the last of the hiccups resulting from the conversion of the text routine into something that'll accept a different format of text. Another was a crash surrounding the default name for your squad. This means you can actually play past the third map now without the game blowing up in your face.

There are still a lot of issues, though. One of the tutorials has a bad button press in its script, which is causing it to go out of sync and lock up. A lot of the interfaces need to be tweaked, windows moved and expanded, and every once in a while there'll be a *really* horrible glitch with some of the graphics, though I have a feeling this is a result of a hook misfire with some of the code I've added to the game. I'll have to double check.

Getting much closer, though.

Progress ~ Merry Christmas, and Apologies
# Posted on Dec. 26, 2009, 12:15 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

I'd hoped to have Megami Tensei (as in, the original) out yesterday, but due in part to being with relatives for the last 48 hours (without internet) I was unable to post this yesterday. Unfortunately this is not the biggest problem with my plan, as several extraordinarily nasty bugs (including the one pictured in the screens below, which refused to die and killed my entire party quite handily) have reared their heads and are preventing the release. The game is mostly done, I think, though I do want to get some of the more nonsensical text segments doublechecked, but the issue is largely due to the physical expansion of the ROM.

Physical expansion (i.e. making the game bigger and being able to fit more text in) is a relatively easy task when dealing with SNES games. Not so with the NES. The glitches - possibly related to timing and interrupts - were initially discovered to be causing visual corruption in the maze layouts. These are easily ameliorated by simply turning your view, but given that this is a first-person dungeon crawl, the bug was deemed serious enough to hold back a release. However when I endeavored to play further, I encountered several further problems, including the Mappa spell's output (a minimap in the left-hand pane) locking in place instead of moving with the player, Nakajima dropping to level 1 after gaining a level in battle yet retaining all of his statistics while Yumiko progressed normally, and of course, the nasty creature pictured in the attached screens, which frankly seemed to be unkillable. Given the severity of these issues, I cannot yet in good faith release the game to the public.

(I've actually just finished talking with Liana, who you may remember from Metal Max Returns. She's done some research and apparently the Bug enemy is not a bug. I hope that sounds as odd to you as it did when I wrote it! The other issues still stand, though.)

However, I *HAVE* done a lot of work on the game in the last week. I've tweaked the font to be a bit more uniform and much more readable (I've un-bolded a few of the letters and straightened out the heights), and I've redrawn the bland "DON" that appears when you bang into a wall to be a much more fancy "BAM" (pictured below.) I've re-researched all of the enemy names and brought them up to speed with proper romanizations. Several of them don't appear in any other Megami Tensei title, or certainly not in any that have been released in English - examples include Akhushtal, Viy, A Bao A Qu, Bathym and Myrrha. I've inserted most, if not all, of the miscellaneous text in the game - and Lord knows there's plenty of the stuff. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that I'd missed some.

I'll post more news when I have it. Can't say when that'll be, though, and I apologize again if I've disappointed anyone.

Major Release ~ LUNAR: Walking School
LUNAR Walking School
# Posted on Dec. 17, 2009, 2:17 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

At long last, it's done! Sorry it took so long.

Miscellaneous ~ Site Maintenance Complete.
# Posted on Dec. 17, 2009, 1:10 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Changes include...
-Twitter has replaced the blog link in the nav bar
-About Me has been updated
-Links Removed: RPGOne (site is dead)
-Links Updated: Kitsune's Den, DQ Translations (Formerly Kojiro Translations), Yonin no Translators (Change of address)
-Links Added: Boojum Snark, Stardust Crusaders, The Romhacking Aerie
-Donate Button Added

Stay tuned: LUNAR is coming very shortly!