Progress ~ Super Robot Wars 4 Progress Report
Super Robot Wars 4
# Posted on March 10, 2021, 9:29 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Hi folks, dropping word on how SRW4 has progressed since the last time it received an update on the site. So 2020 happened, and well, things slowed down quite a lot on my end. The game lets you name your hero, their love interest, and their robot; in order to get the full names stored they've been expanded from 6 letters for player names to 10, and 8 letters for robot names to 12. There were issues with expanded name variables causing the game to crash when the player's character finally gets their robot halfway through the game - these have been solved and the defaults now work great, though name entry itself is still a little busted.

Fei, additionally, has been splitting his time between SRW4 and other projects, but has since completed editing the game's Super Robot route. There's a fair bit of text shared between the Super and Real routes, so hopefully it will be easier on him. In addition, there are a number of technical issues remaining in the backlog - the episode title overlays when starting maps, the CRITICAL indicator in battle animations, the aforementioned name entry issues, the title screen, the end credits, the karaoke mode, etc. For all that, the game itself is playable from start to finish more or less in English. We aren't in last-mile territory but it's looking pretty good, all things considered!

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Progress ~ Super Robot Wars 4 Script Translation Complete
Super Robot Wars 4
# Posted on Nov. 21, 2019, 2:10 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Hi all, just dropping a quick note to say that Super Robot Wars 4's script retranslation has completed. It still needs editing and there are still 25 or so technical issues open in my task tracker (most of which involve tidying up menus) so there's still quite a bit left to do, but this is still a major milestone!

Progress ~ SRW 4 Status Update
Super Robot Wars 4
# Posted on Aug. 6, 2019, 6:55 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Hi everyone, I'm just dropping a note here about where SRW4 is and where it's going. Zenki and I made quite a lot of progress early in the year - we're both at roughly the 2/3s mark for hacking and translation - but we've both also stalled out since to external obligations, so it's going a little bit more slowly than I'd hoped. In the meantime, I'm attaching a few screenshots of current progress on name entry. It's mostly done; I've expanded character name input out to 10 characters per name instead of 6, and robot name input out to 12.

Progress ~ AGTP Turns 20 - Announcements, Updates, Cancellations
Granhistoria | Star Ocean: Blue Sphere | Super Robot Wars 3 | Super Robot Wars 4
# Posted on Feb. 21, 2019, 5:06 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Even though AGTP officially celebrates its anniversary on March 7th each year, as that marks the date that the site found its way to PCPages, it initially launched on Angelfire on February 21st 1999. That makes AGTP twenty years old today. As such, I thought it might be nice to give an overall update on where a number of things stand.

First, I'm announcing that AGTP is picking up Granhistoria. Note that the project descrpition is just a placeholder (for now.) Progress-wise, Liana (Metal Max Returns) translated the script some years ago but wants to give it a going-over, and there are still some menu-related things to work out, but it's in reasonably good shape.

Second, I'm announcing that the projects for 3x3 Eyes, Fire Emblem, Goemon 2, Sutte Hakkun, and Romancing SaGa 2 are being cancelled. Of these, Romancing SaGa 2 is officially available commercially in English, Goemon 2 has a very promising project in the works by somebody else, Sutte Hakkun and 3x3 Eyes were finished by other groups, and Fire Emblem both has other English options available and suffered a similar fate as the SNES Super Robot War games with questionable script translation decisions. I apologize to anyone who was looking forward to these, but please be assured that there are other options available for all of them.

Lastly, an update on priorities for the year. Super Robot Wars 3's script edit is well on track for completion before the end of spring, and SRW4's script retranslation is roughly 37% complete by string volume. I've replaced the screenshot slideshow on the SRW4 page with new images reflecting current work. Following these two, my priorities for the year in approximate order of importance are Star Ocean Blue Sphere, Metal Max 2, Hero Chronicle, and Ladystalker.

It's been a a long road and I honestly don't know if I have another 20 years in me, but for the moment I'm going to keep plugging away. Look for more good news soon!

Progress ~ Super Robot Wars EX Enters Playtesting, Plus SRW 3 and 4
Super Robot Wars EX | Super Robot Wars 4 | Super Robot Wars 3
# Posted on Dec. 4, 2018, 1:55 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

I'm writing today to inform everyone that the Super Robot Wars EX script has been doublechecked and edited, and that playtesting has begun in earnest. Hopefully it won't be long before we can release the patch.

I've begun the process of backporting SRW EX's code to SRW3. Though the dialog itself is (mostly) fine, the terminology is in dire need of an update. Further, as EX shows, it could look a lot better than it does. SRW3's script was translated by a different person than EX, 4, and Gaiden's and I trust his work, so the process of getting 3 done should be simpler and faster than EX's.

Since the SRW4 script basically needs to be junked, I've redumped it so it'll be easier to reinsert. TheMajinZenki (JoJo, SRW 2, all five Great Battle games, SRW Advance Portable, etc) has begun translating, but if anyone wants to lend a hand, please don't hesitate to reach out via email or on the Discord server.

Progress ~ The State of SRW
Super Robot Wars EX | Super Robot Wars 4 | Super Robot Wars Alpha
# Posted on June 25, 2018, 5:59 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

With the recent release of The Elemental Lords, it's time to talk about AGTP's remaining SRW projects. First on the docket is Super Robot Wars EX, which thanks to some recent tooling I'm proud to announce has taken some massive strides forward in the last few weeks and is very close to being technically complete. The script is in reasonably good shape, though I'm in the process of passing it off for a second look-over by SSJCyberSonic who's fresh from his recent work on the A Portable project. I've added 22 new screenshots to the project's page and am attaching two to this post. I'm hopeful that the game will be ready before the end of the year, but as usual I can't promise anything. Additionally, EX's new toolchain acts as a functional proof-of-concept for work that will be going into Hero Chronicle.

The added benefit of having EX fully functional is that the work can be ported to the other SNES SRW games. SRW3, while impressive for its day, is not nearly up to standard and I'm intending to redo it with EX's new font code. And yes, the various incorrect character names will be fixed and the script itself will receive a fresh edit as well. The project's stuff, while usable, is all extremely old though and I'm basically going to have to redo the hacking from scratch. Shouldn't be too difficult, but no timelines or promises on availability.

So that's the good news. The bad news is that the translated lines for SRW4 and SRW Alpha probably fall about 50% into the "best guess" category; in addition to the poor writing quite a lot of the text was just flat-out translated incorrectly. Alpha has been undergoing a verification process with Jolly, the current editor, who's been steadily churning away on its gigantic script for the last several years; he's estimating that he's about 2/3s of the way through the script. What he's done does look really, really nice though, and I'm looking forward to seeing the final version of the text. For SRW4, we're probably just going to toss the script and retranslate it from scratch. Disappointing, but necessary. For the record, The Elemental Lords suffered a similar issue; this is one of the primary reasons the patch took so long in the first place. If anyone wants to have a whack at SRW4's text please reach out! There's an email button on the Contact page, and I can generally be reached on Twitter or on the Discord.

As a final closing note, I've made several minor fixes to The Elemental Lords. Typos, mispellings, that sort of thing. A few are still trickling in here and there so no new patch yet, but I'll push out a v1.05 or something in the next month or two once that trickle slows.