Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi

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Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi Final Fantasy
Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Ka Sheng (TW), Piko Interactive (US), PixelHeart (EU)
Developer: Never Ending Soft Studio
Sound driver: Data East/High Seas Havoc
Genre: RPG
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code RU 200x TW 1996 US 2018-05-01 $49.9949.99 US (Cart only) 2018-05-01 $39.9939.99 EU 2018 €44,9044,90

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Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi – Mo Fa Zhan Shi (BARVER BATTLE SAGA 太空戰士 魔法戰士) is an unlicensed Sega Mega Drive role-playing game developed by Never Ending Soft Studio and published by Ka Sheng. Originally released exclusively in Taiwan in 1996, the game is notable for its relatively-high production values for an unlicensed title, and later received a popular English fan translation in 2010.

Sometime in the early 2000s, game was translated into Cyrillic and published in Russia as Final Fantasy. It features minor soundtrack changes and different packaging.

The official English localization was released by Piko Interactive in 2018 under the title Brave Battle Saga: Legend of the Magic Warrior. They also released a Steam version on 18 March, 2019.

Story

Humans and daemons develop civilization independently using technology and magic, respectively. Technology comes to triumph over magic, and the world is destroyed in an technological accident. Survivors continued without technology for a thousand years, until the old technology was discovered and returned to use.

Furthermore, the world is divided into four kingdoms, each representing one of the four natural forces and with four temples: Cruz, whose Moon Temple controls water, Galien, whose Sun Temple controls the earth, Zak, whose Star Temple controls technology, and Lear, whose Wind Temple controls wind.

Now the daemons have returned...

Gameplay

Hit to open a status menu with various options for controlling equipment and magic spells, checking status, saving, etc.

In towns and houses, talks to people.

Battles are menu-driven and turn based, making use of an Active Time Battle (ATB) gauge. Other games for the Sega Mega Drive that make use of the ATB gauge are Surging Aura and Tun Shi Tian Di III.

Enemies are visible on the map. Players have to touch an enemy to enter a battle.

History

Development

Despite generally being accredited to Taiwanese developer Chuanpu, development was outsourced to the closely-related Never Ending Soft.

Versions

Taiwanese

The first version of the game was released in Taiwan in 1996. The original title translates to The Space Warrior – The Magic Warrior; the game reuses thematic elements from previous Final Fantasy games released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It also implements a battle system similar to the ones present in Final Fantasy IV – IX, with an ATB (Active Time Battle) gauge and summon spells.

Russian (Chinese-made)

Final Fantasy was released in Russia and CIS territories in early 2000s, at least four times by different companies.

A notoriously poor (seemingly computer-generated) translation to Russian by Chinese pirates was released as part of Magic Drive series (by BBG Electronics) and Saga series (by Kin Wai (Hong Kong) Investment Limited). Other than translating the text and changing the title screen, the Russian release also featuers different music throughout the game, including a different battle theme; the original battle theme from the Taiwanese version was changed to the victory theme in this version.

Silver release series, distributed by Simba's Video Games, had clarification book in Russian added to game. It's unknown if translations is different than above one.

New Game also released this game in it's own series but with different cartridge, which might suggest that game have another translation,

English localization

In 2010 the game was fan translated to English by djinn and SteveMartin. The patch changed the title to Brave Battle Saga: Legend of the Magic Warrior, what makes this version similar to the Taiwanese original in dropping the connection with Final Fantasy in the title. Nevertheless, thematic elements from the Final Fantasy series are still present, since the gameplay remains unchanged.

Piko Interactive acquired the rights to this game (including the fan translation) and released the official English version in 2017 under the title Brave Battle Saga: Legend of the Magic Warrior.

Magazine articles

Main article: Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi/Magazine articles.

Physical scans

Mega Drive, TW
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, RU
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, RU (New Game)
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive (Magic Drive), RU
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, RU (Silver Release)
Cover
Cart Clarification Book

Mega Drive, US
Cover

Mega Drive, EU
Cover

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 d37a37c6 MD5 7e0add665a16ce7d9965d8858c4c0ec4 SHA-1 6d49a0db7687ccad3441f47fbc483c87cd6eab53	2MB		Cartridge
?	CRC32 879759a5 MD5 dea437cdbc6cff0dfdfc3521592b7dcf SHA-1 3c4b7ecf379934c8cb1a3b8db257ac828b7dd73f	2MB			Two-byte difference with above ROM.
?	CRC32 76e2a07a MD5 79aa0b7939c10dc39ae6c2dc72e3bdd2 SHA-1 44c5d4f7430d3bd8d6cdac03c71fd9b3d219a215	2MB			Referred to as "v0.9" in GoodGen.

External links

• Product page (Piko Interactive)
• Product page (PixelHeart)