Any Brigandine (PSX) fans?

[HwitVlf]

Attached is an updated set of notes with some typos fixed and a simple explanation for common Op codes added.

[Smittiox]

Reading this thread has me really interested in playing this game. You guys seem pretty fond of it anyway. would like to help in the hacking / programming dept but my skills amount to skills from the 80's ..
10 print "repeat this lineover n over"
20 goto 10
run
lol

‎  I remember when the art on the box made a big difference too. hooray for a rental card lol, we were pretty broke all the time so it was nice to rent first.

‎  Good luck on finding a copy too Todd. had a few 'friends' like that myself. ugh, I mean ...when I've borrowed things I treated them better than my own. it was always just, well an important thing i guess. I'll keep an eye out at the game swaps. actually found a copy of diablo 1 for playstation. cost me $30 though. my wife found an original silent hill a few years ago too for $40 so I guess it wouldn't be impossible to find one of these eh?

‎  Somebody mentioned english narration would be nice. Oughtta work on Ben for that one " wink wink, nudge nudge " ‎ 

Oh , don't think I've mentioned my name in the forums yet. I'm Chris. ‎ 

Take care folks and good to meet you Prevch .. all of you for that matter ‎ 

[Prevch]

HwitVlf you're my hero.

I can't believe you wrote up those notes for me, Thank you! You did a great job of explaining. I'm looking forward to trying out the example you gave.

I found this GE cheat video using a cheat engine and epsxe running GE, the first part I thought you might find interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5FMjjNVzME

Funny you should mention adding the 3D scenes into the GE edition, the other day I was just thinking "Wouldn't be in cool if I could take the good stuff from GE and add it in to LOF so I could still use the 3D battle scenes?" - So, essentially the same idea, but backerds (backwards).

I think you're right though, adding them into GE would be a better move, since there are so many improvements in that game. Plus, you almost have that fancy translation done! You have no idea how excited I am for that! Although I will say there are things in LOF that I prefer over GE, but as a whole, I think GE is the more compete experience.

It likely would be a lot of work to add in the 3D scenes from LOF, not to mention that GE has some new units, so it would require some new 3D models, or at the very least, recolors of the existing models.

Take Meleagant's class Avenger, for instance. In GE, Avengers have a cape, in LOF they do not. Also, there are some new monster classes and a couple of the rune knights have special classes, etc, etc.

Perhaps one of the most problematic parts of adding in new 3D models would be finding an artist talented enough to match Brigandine's art style. It actually might be hard to create a low poly figure that would look like it sort of belonged in the game. I'm assuming some clever hackers have already figured out how to extract graphics from PSX roms, so if they could be extracted, modified and placed back in, that'd be great. I'm not sure if there are any new spells, but I guess that could get kind of tricky too.

My absolute ultimate Brigandine project would be:
1. Have GE translated into English (thanks to you, it sounds like this is going to happen, just to reiterate, you're my hero)
2. Insert 3D battle scenes into GE which includes models for new units and units that have changed E.G. Avenger
3. Have English actors do voice overs for the recorded dialogue and allow users to choose if they want to use the English or Japanese voices
4. Rebalance some units. For example, change Giga Scorpion's HP, Element and chance to poison (among several other changes to other units)
5. In unit description for units who have a chance to apply a status anomaly when they attack, tell players what that chance is. For example, in the Roc's unit description, tell user's that they have a 10% chance of petrifying their opponents (not sure if 10% is the right number, but it seems close)
6. Add some additional units
7. Have special quest items that allow certain knight units to change into classes that are otherwise unavailable. For example, One of my favorite knight classes is Death Knight, which of course is only available to Cador of the Esgares Empire. Cador leaves Esgares Empire (at least in LOF) and the user loses one of their best knights. I think it'd be cool to have like a "Cador's Mask" quest item that could be used on specific knight classes to turn them into a Death Knight, similar to how Rage Lightning or Wisdom Seed is used on monster units to turn them into otherwise unavailable classes.
8. Have online multiplayer through Kaillera or something similar
9. More interesting ecomonic and resource management system
10. A blocking animation

There is probably some other stuff that I haven't thought of, but the above are at least a few of my pipe dreams.

Based off the notes you sent me and some reading I have done online, some of these things seem within reach, while others seem a bit farfetched.

I wouldn't mind trying to do some of them someday though. Too bad we can't get Hearty Robin LTD. to release their source code and DevKit, that would make this job much easier ‎ 

Maybe we can recruit Smittiox to make 3D models for us! lol

Hi Smittiox, it's nice to meet you as well and thank you for your interest.

My experience has been that Brigandine is one of those games that people come down on one side of the fence or the other in terms of their passion towards the game. They either think it's totally lame, or they think it's awesome. Clearly, I'm in the I think it's awesome camp.

It also is one of those games that requires some time investment on the player's part to really understand and appreciate its value.

The hard part about finding Brigandine at game stores and swaps, is just that there were so few of them produced. If you do find one and it has the map and class change guide, you have to promise to scan in the map and guide so I can print it out and hang it up in my man cave basement! There is one for sale on Ebay for like $50 (as of this writing anyway) here: https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...ink:top:en and it includes the strategy guide, which is pretty rare. I own a copy of the strategy guide as well and while it's not terribly useful, it is a cool piece of memorabilia.

I don't know what path my mod is going to take me on, but if I take it further and add in some additional changes, I'll let you know if I need some help. How are you at 3D modeling?

Speaking of the translations, how is that project going HwitVlf? Should I be expecting GE in English for Christmas this year?

UPDATE: I was just looking at extracting 3D models from PSX games and it seems kind of tough. I wonder if ultimately it would just be easier to do new 3D models and figure out how to incorporate them into the game? Don't know.

The hard part seems to be the format that the models are stored in. Even if one was to create new models, I wonder if the tools are even available to store them in the correct format?

Have you ever heard of anyone doing new models for ‎  PSX games?

[HwitVlf]

Smittox, nice to know you Chris, I'm John from central California in the US ‎ 

Prevch, I glad if the notes were understandable. I tend to be long winded so I struggle tryig to decide what information is actually needed and what is just me rambling.

Working with LoF made me remember how cool those 3D scenes were. I can't imaging why they dropped them in GE. I admit that I did turn them off around my 3rd playthough, but they were still awesome. I think they should have made the 3D scenes play randomly 10% of the time or so. That would have sped up the game while making the 3D even more special.

I like the changes you mention, Some of those tweaks should be quite easy to do, and some considerably harder. Sony actually released an official homebrew PS1 developers kit called Net Yazore so most of the PS1 proprietary formats are well documented. I know of at least one fan made PS1 game that is currently in production. It's just that there aren't ready-bake tools to edit everything. For example, the PS1 3D format (TMD) is thoroughly explained in the dev kit, but I only know of 1 tool that edits TMDs and it doesn't support animated models.

As far as timing on the translation, I actually have quite a ways to go before the full project is done. I haven't translated much of the dialog/quest text and I may have a hard time fitting the English for that section. I'm going to try to work steadily, and I might release a partial (menus translated) patch before long, but I'm just taking it step by step, hoping I don't run into anything I can't figure out. ‎ 

[Prevch]

Sounds awesome.

No pressure, we're just excited! ‎ 

If you need someone to do proofreading, let me know.

[nilianofts]

Hi, I'm from Brazil and I'm a fan of the brigandine series. I played forsena when I was at mid school and grand edition some years ago. I've used a translated version of the ISO back there but it just translated the menus, castles, units(the old ones from LoF) and some spells (the old ones from LoF).

I want to thank you for your efforts to translate this game and want to say that I'm really looking forward to your translation project. Seeing the preview images of the game with descriptions in english was just awesome.

I'd loved to have GE with the LoF soundtracks. Don't get me wrong the tracks from GE are nice but they are too similar, its like hearing the same song all the time, besides I miss the Organize Music. But I know that is asking to much.

Anyway good work and like Prevch said "No pressure".

[Prevch]

Thanks for posting here, it's always good to see other Brigandine fans.

I too am looking forward to the translation, but in the mean time, feel free to participate in any future Brigandine side-conversations that we have ‎ 

Good to meet you and thanks for posting.

[HwitVlf]

Hi nilianofts :) and thank you for speaking up! ‎  I've really been encouraged by the number of people who say they are looking forward to this translation. Brigandine fans seem to be almost everywhere on the planet. I've seen a lot of people from Asia, Australia, and North and South America and our friend HB earlier in this thread from Russia in Europe.

I totally agree that the music in LoF was more interesting/exciting than GE. Some of the GE music is good, but it just doesn't set the same mood as LoF's music. I've never played the Japanese basic Brigandine game; I wonder if it was identical to LoF or if Atlus changed/added music etc when they brought it to English.

If you happen to be a Parasite Eve fan, I'll mention that a Spanish translation was recently finished for the game. You can check it out HERE if interested :)

EDIT: Incidentally Prevch, I meant to say that BGE tells you the odds of inflicting abnormal statuses etc in the attack descriptions. Strangely, they're listed as fractions 1/5 etc. I thought the US was the only country that still used non-decimal notations.

[Prevch]

That's awesome. They thought of so many great things in GE, except to keep the 3D battle scenes....doh!

[HwitVlf]

Not much of an update as I have been busy or otherwise distracted to get much done on Brigandine for awhile. However, I just finished translating the knight/enemy descriptions. There are some almost sad changes to descriptions when a character loses their home country. I won't spoil anything, but suffice it to say I'll feel a little sad when I crush an enemy country from now on... except for maybe Dryst's Iscalio. A man who wears tights and a poofy lace collar into battle deserves to get his country taken away!

I have to do some proof reading, polishing and such but that should be the last major hurdle before translating quest/dialog. ‎