Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

Officially, we are still studying this Japanese-only turn-based (classic) SFC RPG for a possible English patch translation. Put another way, we have not announced.

However, Bongo` has already done significant work on it, going back a number of years. I'm talking earlier than 2011. In fact, Bongo` "lost" a bunch of that work for a number of years, after 2012. Then, in late 2015, Bongo` "found" his Shiji work again, "Accidentally," he said. Bongo` also reported that he was "enjoying" it... "again." Discussions concerning Shiji took place on these boards off and on during the two years I was on hiatus, roughly 2015 to 2017. I came back in late 2017, and here we are.

When I say, "Here we are," that requires further explanation. Less than a month ago, Bongo` sent me a rudimentary insertion system for Shiji, and I've done a bit more than just "play around" with it. With a few critical assembly and other fixes by Bongo`, I have put together a V0.12 fully translated playable Shiji beta - in English.

Why am I calling it Shiji instead of Shiki? Shiki is Japanese, but the former is Chinese, and the story takes place in China. In fact, Shiji is THE definitive history of ancient China, written by the Sima Clan prior to the year Zero, (Before Christ). "Eiyuuden" and the sub-title roughly translate to "Dragon Sage (Man) Hero Legend". I dropped the "Dragon Sage Man" parts because that nomenclature doesn't come into play until SHL's game story ends.

The tale takes place during approximately 300 B. C. and fairly accurately follows the major conflict events of China's Warring States Era. These battles occurred and were well-recorded during what were prehistoric times in Japan. Our friend Hausen can do a much better job than I filling in everyone on how the game pulls snippets and figures from widely separated periods in Chinese history and injects them playfully into the game, for he has already enjoyed and dissected the Japanese version thoroughly.

So, here we are now with a www board and everything, still evaluating. When Bongo` fixes my broken level-up architecture, I will be prepared to transport myself into the third kingdom of the seven Warring States, the Han's capital city of Yangzhai. I have finished my first foray into Luoyang and conducted additional training with Hermit Dragon Sage Guiguzi of the Oniya line. I also just met my first travel companion and co-fighter who joined me, a legendary warrior named Lin.

To go forward efficiently, if we do so as an announced project, what we really need most is a dedicated translator to knock out the Japanese script. I can handle the Chinese conversion, and Hausen has indicated he will backstop us thoroughly on that. In fact, he already has. At the very least, I will handle the translation duties myself, and when finished, my teammates and contributors here at D-D who wish to partake will get to enjoy beating Shiji Hero legend in English!

I will do this game for Bongo` because he has done too much fine Shiji work already for us to allow everything to go to waste! Those interested in the general public may follow our progress here and are invited to pitch in with constructive suggestions and inputs.

And it looks fantastic!! Fingers crossed for a dedicated translator to take up the task

There's a display bug with levelups I noticed... in-battle, you receive a message detailing how much each stat has increased and so on. It turns out "agility" 敏捷 and "wisdom" 術力 are swapped. Say you level up your hero from Lvl 2 to Lvl 3. The battle message displays agility +3 and wisdom +1. In reality, at status screen, agility is risen by 1 and wisdom by 3 points. This happens for all characters, not just the hero.

Those are easily swapped. Thanks! We're rolling. 3X3 is ahead of SHL. When one game is broken, I work on the other.

Here is the actual insertion order and mechanism at level up (currently with a broken scroll function, but the numbers do update on the Status pages, as currently directed).

The graphics below depict what is displayed on both the Japanese Status screen and its re-assembled English counterpart. If I understand correctly, the numbers for agility and wisdom are swapping with each other and misdirecting in their total numbers tallies on the Japanese Status screen.

Using the information I've presented here as a guideline, if you can confirm that the numbers for agility and wisdom need to be re-directed, it may be up to Bongo` to devise an elegant way to do this. In other words. it may no be as simple as just switching the orders of strings or interchanging their pointing data.

.POINTER = $1010A0
; Offset: $101D00

; 腕力が[num$F300]上がった
Arm strength rose [num$F300].[end-0]


.POINTER = $1010A2
; Offset: $101D14

; 守備が[num$F300]上がった
Defense rose [num$F300].[end-0]


.POINTER = $1010A4
; Offset: $101D28

; 敏捷 が[num$F300]上がった
Agility rose [num$F300].[end-0]


.POINTER = $1010A6
; Offset: $101D3C

; 耐久が[num$F300]上がった
Durability rose [num$F300].[end-0]


.POINTER = $1010A8
; Offset: $101D50

; 術力 が[num$F300]上がった
Magic rose [num$F300].[end-0]


.POINTER = $1010AA
; Offset: $101D64

; 幸運が[num$F300]上がった
Luck rose [num$F300].[end-0]


.POINTER = $1010AC
; Offset: $101D78

; 体力が[num$F300]上がった
Vitality rose [num$F300].[end-0]


.POINTER = $1010AE
; Offset: $101D8C

; 気力が[num$F300]上がった
Energy rose [num$F300].[end-0]

Also, the English terminology doesn't necessarily match exactly between the level-up statements and their corresponding categories displayed on the Status sceen. Perhaps you may have some suggestions on this. I haven't gotten around to examining these closely yet. Too busy just trying to translate and write the story.

It looks like there would be room on that status screen to make it look more like the Japanese where the Experience isn't multi-line like that. Is there not? Not that it is a big deal, just an aesthetics thing.

Something along the lines of...?

This kind of layout was possible after moving class and hp/mp bars up one row. I wonder how much space the EXP number needs? Highest I know is, at lvl 43 the hero has just a sliver above 1 million exp, and thats the extent of my save atm.. I'm not enough of a wizard, to look under the hood and find how much exp you have at 99, and I'm certainly getting tired of killing so many innocent pandas..

I would even say the numbers could be on the same line instead of underneath if there is room. I don't know how much room this all takes overall, but just from an initial eyballing of this screen. It looks like a double spaced 2 items per line system would work.

BTW: Are you going to send me the stuff so I can create a new font Wildbill? You really should get on that before you get any further into this.

Do you just need the whole Shiji package from me, or did you also mean something Bongo` has that I might not? Yep, I was gonna mosey on over to Yangzhai today with my new bud, Lin, and look for some more training in the Han Kingdom, but the less reformatting I gotta do down the road, the better...

I'll go start smoothing out all of the Mexican sites in 3X3 instead. I broke the EXP/level-up engine for Yakumo and Pai in Greece, and the Aztec baddies dial it up several notches South of the Border. So, I still have plenty to do while I'm waiting for the weather to cooperate with my soon-to-be-renewed house-building chores in Virginia. We're fixing to sell the D. C. place in about 10 months, speaking of which, I finally got my Shiji package yesterday at my D. C. home, so I'm legal now and need to get on scanning that manual ASAP! (Did SylarDean construct an annotated Shiji map? BTW, where IS SylarDean!?)

TF, if you'll slap me up a 3X3 and a Shiji shell under "Projects", I can start building those until we get the new font, and all the broken Level-ups and such are hummin' along again! I can also scan that Shiji manual, but my 3X3 cart items are sitting in an unopened package from Japan on my kitchen table back in Oklahoma.

Anything you guys do to make those Status screen purtier... BTW, each fighter has several Status screen that you can toggle. Dunno, but they maybe all could stand a bit more in the way of tweaks and refinements.

Oh, that spoiler!! The all-but-finished Arethas have wild hidden things such as that! Love it!

The quote is SylarDean's from a thread here in... 2016? - time flies!! - about SHL. Should SD happen to read the latest buzz around this project I'm sure he'd considering putting back up that awesome map of his! I did save a copy of the image, but without his permission I'm hesitant to sharing it around.