Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead translation

[cccmar]

https://nebulous.group/index.php/projects/translations/war-of-dead/
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/3328/

We did this one spontaneously in 2 weeks - turned out that it wasn't too difficult to hack, and it didn't have that much text either, so we figured we'd do it, especially considering that it's the 30th anniversary of the MSX2 version, and the sequel has been translated for ages.

We also fixed two game-breaking bugs this game had, both likely caused by code duplicates: EXP bug (after getting more than 9999 EXP, your health would go down to 0/numbers would overflow) and item bug (you could only get 14 items before, otherwise the item menu would bug out, and you'd have to use the password to fix it - now it's no longer the case). Still, if you notice any issues with the patch, by all means let me know. Shouldn't take too long to fix them.

Overall, while not a great game, there is a strange charm to it, perhaps due to the subject matter. I personally liked the story, as it was kinda different from most other games at that time. Either way, here it is. I think we'll tackle some PCE-CD games next though, for a change.

One more thing - I strongly suggest you read the "tips and tricks/how to play" section from the text manual form/readme we came up with. The manual will be ready in its pdf form somewhat later, but for now you just need the text anyway. The manual should help out in a pinch, and it explains certain things much better than the game itself. We also put the most important pieces of advice in the RHDN patch description, so hopefully you won't miss them.

Download Patch v1.00: wotd_1.0.zip

Addendum:

[EmperorIng]

AWESOME!!!!! I've wanted to play this game in English for ages! I never got far dicking around due to the language barrier. This comes out of the blue, but is so welcome! I love the atmosphere, gloomy tunes, and Action/RPG hybrid, even if the game is rough around the edges.  To go so far as to fix up some of the port's most egregious bugs - you guys did God's work right there!

Additionally I've dreamed of a translation hack of the PC88 sequel, but that's another story. 

[nectarsis]

I can't wait to try this out

[NecroPhile]

Cool, another translation patch!  I hope y'all do more. 

[Gypsy]

Another reason to get an everdrive, heh.

I'll definitely give this a go once I get one.

[PunkCryborg]

I've always wanted to play this but now I definitely will thanks to you and your awesome work. Thank you very much!

[xcrement5x]

Badass.  An early Christmas has arrived. 

Thanks for the hard work!

[cccmar]

Additionally I've dreamed of a translation hack of the PC88 sequel, but that's another story. 

We actually considered this port as well to some extent, but unfortunately PC-88 is much more pain to work on. Maybe we'll try it in the future when there's a better debugger, or once we come up with one on our own. 

Cool, another translation patch!  I hope y'all do more. 

We have a few more games on the back-burner, but none of them are for PCE thus far. There are definitely more HuCard games we'd like to have a shot at in the future though - WotD was our 4th project of this type, and there are at least 3-4 more we may get around to at some point - maybe sooner, maybe later. There are still some pretty interesting potential HuCard projects left.

[Gredler]

Awesome, thanks for doing this! I will check this out soon for sure, great job!

[shubibiman]

Awesome! Thanks for the good work and for sharing!

[EmperorIng]

We actually considered this port as well to some extent, but unfortunately PC-88 is much more pain to work on. Maybe we'll try it in the future when there's a better debugger, or once we come up with one on our own. 

Ah, I had gotten my hopes up with the translation of 4.6 Billion Year Story earlier in the year or the year previous that things had gotten easier! Still, I am not one to complain and appreciate that some thought was thrown that way. As it stands the PCE port - with the bug fixes - is a pretty good version of the game, when you compare it to some of the home computer releases that strain with the action.

I got to apply the patch and I am enjoying being able to figure things out now, even if it is as simple as the starting directions "Go south to check out the city hall", etc etc. The random encounter rate has always seemed pretty weird - you can go a minute without triggering anything, or have battles every couple of steps! Truly random! That being said, the tips you guys gave in the readme are also much appreciated.

One thing that may turn people off is the seemingly high difficulty for the battles. I think it might be good to use the gun for the first few battles, at least until you level up; your health is quickly depleted on contact with monsters, so getting up close should be reserved until you are more familiar with the controls. Another thing that might be confusing is the world! What a bizarrely huge layout - this town has buildings separated by miles of treacherous mountain pass, ha! Looking at a map will definitely help ease confusion.

[cccmar]

Ah, I had gotten my hopes up with the translation of 4.6 Billion Year Story earlier in the year or the year previous that things had gotten easier! Still, I am not one to complain and appreciate that some thought was thrown that way. As it stands the PCE port - with the bug fixes - is a pretty good version of the game, when you compare it to some of the home computer releases that strain with the action.

I got to apply the patch and I am enjoying being able to figure things out now, even if it is as simple as the starting directions "Go south to check out the city hall", etc etc. The random encounter rate has always seemed pretty weird - you can go a minute without triggering anything, or have battles every couple of steps! Truly random! That being said, the tips you guys gave in the readme are also much appreciated.

One thing that may turn people off is the seemingly high difficulty for the battles. I think it might be good to use the gun for the first few battles, at least until you level up; your health is quickly depleted on contact with monsters, so getting up close should be reserved until you are more familiar with the controls. Another thing that might be confusing is the world! What a bizarrely huge layout - this town has buildings separated by miles of treacherous mountain pass, ha! Looking at a map will definitely help ease confusion.

I see your point, though 4.6 Billion Year Story came out on PC-98 - it's a significantly easier platform to work with, thanks to the wealth of materials, documentation etc. in English (we did some PC-98 games too). What's more, there's no decent debugger for PC-88 as of now (at least to our knowledge). Definitely nothing like the amazing debugger mednafen has. Without it you're just left stranded in the dark when trying to do anything.

Speaking of WotD, there are "safe" areas in the game, like some corridors for example, or the church region, and there are areas in which random encounters are more common than anywhere else - such as the ruins later on in the game, or certain field areas. And yes, you are absolutely right - it's best to use PS REM on your gun at first, gain a couple of levels, and then venture forth. Still, in this version at least you can run from battles (you can't do that in the PC-88 port). Of course, the map was a part of the manual, so you would have access to it upon purchasing the game; that's why I would consider the map an integral feature of this game. The NPCs do not always tell you where some place is located anyway, so it's pretty clear to me that they intended the map to be important. They could've implemented it into the game additionally though, I'd say.

[BigusSchmuck]

Great! I hope you guys do more, people need to get off the snes drug and give the PCE more loving!

[cccmar]

Great! I hope you guys do more, people need to get off the snes drug and give the PCE more loving!

Hahah, there's a grain of truth to that. I think it's mostly down to your preferences as far as hacking goes; we prefer working on NEC systems and Sega Genesis for the most part, largely because of very good debuggers and documentation. And well, there aren't nearly as many big games to do (unless you of course count PCE-CD). Still, to each his own. Would be cool to see more PCE translations from other groups too!

[esteban]

Ah, I had gotten my hopes up with the translation of 4.6 Billion Year Story earlier in the year or the year previous that things had gotten easier! Still, I am not one to complain and appreciate that some thought was thrown that way. As it stands the PCE port - with the bug fixes - is a pretty good version of the game, when you compare it to some of the home computer releases that strain with the action.

I got to apply the patch and I am enjoying being able to figure things out now, even if it is as simple as the starting directions "Go south to check out the city hall", etc etc. The random encounter rate has always seemed pretty weird - you can go a minute without triggering anything, or have battles every couple of steps! Truly random! That being said, the tips you guys gave in the readme are also much appreciated.

One thing that may turn people off is the seemingly high difficulty for the battles. I think it might be good to use the gun for the first few battles, at least until you level up; your health is quickly depleted on contact with monsters, so getting up close should be reserved until you are more familiar with the controls. Another thing that might be confusing is the world! What a bizarrely huge layout - this town has buildings separated by miles of treacherous mountain pass, ha! Looking at a map will definitely help ease confusion.

...

Speaking of WotD, there are "safe" areas in the game, like some corridors for example, or the church region, and there are areas in which random encounters are more common than anywhere else - such as the ruins later on in the game, or certain field areas. And yes, you are absolutely right - it's best to use PS REM on your gun at first, gain a couple of levels, and then venture forth. Still, in this version at least you can run from battles (you can't do that in the PC-88 port). Of course, the map was a part of the manual, so you would have access to it upon purchasing the game; that's why I would consider the map an integral feature of this game. The NPCs do not always tell you where some place is located anyway, so it's pretty clear to me that they intended the map to be important. They could've implemented it into the game additionally though, I'd say.

These comments alone will give me courage to stick with the game.

I tried playing it many years ago and was completely confused/overwhelmed...I never thought it would ever see a translation patch—THANK YOU, COMRADE!

[nopepper]

Thank you so much for the translation.

I'd be lying if I said I was going to try it anytime soon considering my backlog, but maybe one day.

Do you have a site to send a donation your way?

[destructive cactus]

Thanks so much for this! I just gave it a try and wow is the game hard, but the translation script and hacking are great work indeed! Can't wait to spend some time with this one.

[cccmar]

Do you have a site to send a donation your way?

We don't take donations (at least for now), but we do have a site: https://nebulous.group/ . It's more of a blog where we share news/updates concerning our work, upload our patches, manuals in the PDF form when available etc. We will upload the manual for War of the Dead there as well, in the future.

[Keith Courage]

This is awesome! You and your translation team are awesome! Now I can play this game to find out if it is also awesome!

[SuperPlay]

Great work :-) Thanks for the translation

[Vimtoman]

Never played it  .
Thanks will have a go now.

[NightWolve]

Hat tip to cccmar and crew for yet another PCE localization project, guess I didn't notice it at the time.

Threads needed more visuals during promotion, you gotta show the eye candy to get noticed, another reason Facebook/Twitter/Discord are winning due to how easy it is to share any photo/any time without worrying about an external host provider (that fails later like Image Shack)...

Anyway, I embedded the RHDN screenshots so they're also permanent here. We need a high quality super thread of all existing PCE localizations with at least 5 screenshots each, that'd be a good idea in the future.