EPISODE 64

What a wonderful game! Ever played it?

In the lead-up to this week's video I was wondering if there was any truth to Square's official line about SD3 being "buggy," and not worth translating because of all the fixes it would need. I'd sure never seen any real glitches or bugs. So I went to someone I figured would probably know the game better than just about anyone... Neill Corlett, the guy who did the translation! Here's what he had to say...

"Thanks for your feedback. I've also heard the rumor that SD3 never
shipped in the US because of bugs, or because it would have been too
costly to clean up the code for NoA QA. Unfortunately, I don't know of
any specific bugs that would have caused this.

SD3's gameplay code is a bit convoluted. It runs on top of a bytecode
VM that I didn't study too deeply because it was unrelated to the
dialogue code (which runs on a different VM). This may explain why some
parts of the game feel laggy, especially compared to Secret of Mana, or
why messages sometimes don't appear right away. It wouldn't surprise me
if this VM caused some sort of race condition or other bug allowing for
sequence breaks in the game - but I don't know of any offhand.

Having worked in the game industry, I can say that projects get canceled
a lot, often for random reasons.

Glad you're enjoying the patch, and I look forward to checking out your
video.

Neill "

I'll also post up THIS LINK to an interview with Neill where he discusses the process of translating the game. A good read. And thank you Neill for allowing so many people to play this wonderful game.

Here's what should be no surprise to anyone...

(Just realised I forgot to put it in the video... Oops... Oh well, I guess the ranting speaks for itself)

IN OTHER RETRO NEWS... Mega Man 5 was released on the Wii Virtual Console this week! And Mega Man X came out last week! How strange that after months and months of neglect (read: abandonment) Capcom's come to the rescue. The main reason this is worth mentioning is that it marks the first time MM5 has ever been officially released for purchase in Australia. Huzzah for only being 20 years late!

The countdown continues! 3 weeks to go!!

P.S. Did you see this?? Mind... BLOWN!!