Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi

Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi
Title screen.
Publisher	NT (?)
Developer	Chuanpu
Console	Sega Mega Drive
Date	1996
Engine	Chuanpu RPG engine
Sound engine	High Seas Havoc
Alternate names/hacks	Brave Battle Saga: Legend of the Magic Warrior FINAL FANTASY Lian Huan Pao: Barver Battle Saga

Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi (Chinese: '太空戰士 魔法戰士') is an unlicensed game for the Sega Mega Drive, developed by Chuanpu.

Overview

Exploring the game play field.

The game's story centers on an ancient space station that was buried beneath the earth centuries ago after it was used to wipe out previous civilizations during war. The main protagonist Tim and his friends end up finding themselves the only ones who can prevent the evil Zak Empire from collecting four plates that reactivate this ancient weapon, and using it to dominate the world.

The game evidently is based on the same engine as that of Ya-se Chuan Shuo and Tun Shi Tian Di III, with the exceptions of a different battle view, and instead of a world map each area connects to one another, essentially making one huge play field a la Secret of Mana on SNES, though much more linear.

Translations

A Russian translation of the game made by unknown Chinese authors was released in Russia under the title "Barver Battle Saga: Final Fantasy". The translators apparently did not understand Russian however, and the resulting Russian in the game is unintelligible at points. Due to this it is assumed that the people behind this translation possibly just used an online Chinese to Russian translator. Magic Team modified Glorysun's version fixing every grammar error.

On December 31st, 2009 an English translation patch for the Chinese ROM, re-titling the game Brave Battle Saga: Legend of the Magic Warrior, was released on romhacking.net. The hacking was done by Djinn, while translation was done by SteveMartin. However, the rights to the game have been transferred to Piko Interactive, causing the original translation to be pulled down.

Gallery

Main article: Barver Battle Saga: Tai Kong Zhan Shi/gallery

Front of the box.

Back of the box.

Front of the box for the Russian translation.

Back of the box of the Russian translation (center).

A Chinese reprint from Guangzhou Li Cheng Industry & Trade Co.

Cover of the guidebook.

Character bios from the guidebook.

Random pages from the guidebook.

Trivia

The cover of the official guide book.

• As happens with most of the bootlegs with High Seas Havoc-based sound engine, there's some recycled music. An unused short song featured in the ROM has the same arrangement used as the first part of a song featured in Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan and in the title of MK5 - Mortal Combat - Sub Zero. There's also the "Danger" theme also used as the boss theme in Mulan.
• If you hold A+B+C+Start at the title screen the logos for NT Software and Shin Shin Electronics will show up. It is unknown if these companies had any hand in this games development.
• The game's battle screens bear a great resemblance to the battle screens in Breath of Fire II for SNES. In addition, Tim's sprite in battles also bears a resemblance to the main player's battle sprite in Breath of Fire II.
• Several areas in the game are based on other popular RPGs, with many coming from Romancing Saga 3, such as the Fairy Village resembling Tata Treetops, and the entrance to the Holy Temple being the basis for the entrance to all the temples in Barver Battle Saga.
• The Ayrshire character's sprite is a straight rip of Kefka from FINAL FANTASY VI.
• The full official name of the game when reading all the Chinese is "Barver Battle Saga - Tai Kong Zhan Shi - Mo Fa Zhan Shi." Translated literally, the Chinese reads "The Space Warrior - The Magic Warrior."
• The main Chinese title, Tai Kong Zhan Shi (The Space Warrior), is what FINAL FANTASY is known as in Taiwan. This accompanied with the fact the box art steals artwork from FINAL FANTASY artist Yoshitaka Amano supports the idea that this title was chosen only to attract customers.
• Funny enough, not only is it until the very last sentence at the game's ending is it implied that the Chinese for Magic Warrior is meant to be taken as a plural, thus implying not only Tim but all his friends were Magic Warriors. Considering also that the word Magic Warrior barely shows up until a few times towards the ending of the game, the developers of the game left it a bit ambiguous on how you were supposed to interpret this subtitle.
• Chuanpu Technology released an official guidebook for the game, which also shows the only official character artwork for the game.
• Some enemy designs in this game, such as the first boss, were reused for Vast Fame's Sheng Shou Wu Yu strategy RPG, Union Bond's Da Hua Xi You, and various Shenzhen Nanjing Technology RPGs. The first one is more of asset recycling unlike in others' cases since Vast Fame's staff featured Chuanpu staffers who worked on this game.
• The character cover art shows Celia, Lucia (who is a sprite swap of Celia), Cherie and Tim. However, artwork for Ray is not present. Instead, the cover art shows an unknown super-hero-like character.
• There's a hack called Lian Huan Pao: Barver Battle Saga which was published by Winsen. The Ka Sheng easter egg was removed in this version.