The time for talk is over and the time for deliverance is here! Ladies and gentlemen, after over 5 years of work (periodic), the English translation of Emerald Dragon is out! At last, for better or for worse, the world has been graced with an English version of this game! It will be denied to you no more! So, cancel your plans, spread the word, and tell your friends. It’s Emerald Dragon time!
This time around, I’ve included a custom patcher, ‘TransPatch’ (Windows only), that will only allow you to patch the correct copy of the game with the correct patch. It’s about as newbie friendly as it gets. It will patch headered or non-headered games. Don’t you dare create a topic in the forums or send me an e-mail on patching help unless you’ve given this utility a try! For everybody else, you can apply the patch soft or hard, however you please.
This patch has been tested on the real hardware, so copier players rejoice! As for emulators, I’d recommend BSNES as it’s the only emulator that gets the sound right. It works OK on SNES9x and ZSNES, however notes stick in the music and sometimes instruments can be off pitch in certain songs. Otherwise it plays OK.
Please, as a personal favor to me for all my (and others) hard work, read the readme. Besides containing some important information, it contains plenty of information on the project, some of which you might find interesting, or even entertaining!
With that said, enjoy! I’m probably going on ROMhacking vacation for awhile until I feel like returning to action on Tenshi No Uta, Heracles IV, or whatever other interesting projects I may have up my sleeve!
-Nightcrawler
Just a small update. Things are progressing fine. I finished all of the previously pending work. These two screenshots are from the Casino text which was the last bit of hacking work that needed to be done on the game. It really was an entirely separate mini game and required all new hacking. The original routine used a tilemap based font. The control codes were really wicked to convert into something usable with a VWF. However, I got the job done and now we have left all that behind us.
Unfortunately, only one of the beta testers have finished the game so far. Others cited delays due to December end of semester exams in their schooling. I have fixed all discovered bugs reported so far, however I’d like to wait for additional testers to finish. A final test will also be conducted on the real hardware by a special tester.
This past week, I also added my traditional Easter egg of myself in the game. I made a new custom sprite that I’m pretty proud of. It’s amazing I could produce anything resembling a person to begin with let alone something that looks half decent! ;)
In the meantime, while I wait for testing to finish up, I’ll be tinkering around with some code for the intro and a new musical composition. I eventually have to also write the dreaded readme file, which I always put off way too long. I really don’t like writing them.
So, what is the ETA of Emerald Dragon? I’m shooting for a January release, but that’s going to depend on the testers and likelihood of any additional issues being discovered by them and on the real hardware.
Be patient. The work’s all done. We’re just testing it to make sure it’s in the best condition possible. :)
-Nightcrawler