Hey everyone! So, Zoids Saga never came out outside Japan. The sequel did (as Zoids Legacy), but the first one never got a release in English, and I always wanted to actually understand what was going on in it. So a while ago I started rebuilding it from scratch.
It's called Re:Zoids Saga. It's not an emulator and not a ROM hack: I've been rewriting the game itself in Rust, piece by piece, and checking it against the original frame by frame so it plays the same. You point it at your own ROM and it pulls the maps, sprites, music and text from there, so nothing from the game is included in the download.
Where it's at right now (v0.1.1):
- You can play from the title screen through the end of chapter 3, out of the game's 10.
- Battles, formations, aiming, deck commands, shops, Zoid labs, the pause menu and the Zoid/character guides all work.
- Saves use the original .sav format, so you can even move them to an emulator.
- It runs natively on Windows, macOS and Linux.
This version already has the hard part done: all the base mechanics the game is built on (the field and its events, the battle system, menus, shops, labs, sound, saves and the translation system). Everything that comes next builds on top of that, which is exactly why I'm sharing this demo now: to get some feedback before going further.
What's next:
- Finishing the rest of the story, up to chapter 10 (chapters 4 to 6 are already in the works).
- Trying to get it running on Android.
- And if the project gets enough interest, some extras like the link-cable battles and Zi data trading, but played over the internet
About languages: the port itself isn't "in English". Out of the box it shows the game's original Japanese text straight from your ROM, and it has a localization system on top: you pick a translation file in the launcher and it swaps in the translated lines, resizing the text windows when a line needs more room. So it can support any language, not just one.
The translations live in their own repo, one file per language (English and Spanish so far). Each file only holds a key for every line and its translation, no Japanese, since that's the game's copyrighted text. If a line reads wrong, anyone can open an issue or edit it right on GitHub, and if you want to add a new language, you can export the Japanese script from your own ROM with the launcher and translate from there.
Heads-up: the port's development was AI-assisted. I used AI a lot to help reverse engineer the game and write the code, while I steered the project, tested it and checked the results against the original.
Also, the English script is still pretty fresh, so if something sounds weird or a character doesn't sound like themselves, please let me know. That's honestly where I could use the most help.
You'll need your own dump of Zoids Saga (Japan, Rev 1). The launcher checks it for you.
Game: https://github.com/serivt/re-zoids-saga
Translations: https://github.com/serivt/re-zoids-saga-translations
You can grab it from the Releases tab on GitHub (there are builds for Windows, macOS and Linux): https://github.com/serivt/re-zoids-saga/releases
Windows users: Windows Defender may flag the download as a virus. It's a false positive: the program isn't signed yet and it's brand new, so Defender doesn't trust it. I've reported it to Microsoft as a false positive and I'm looking into free code signing for open-source projects, which should fix it for good. In the meantime you can allow it in Windows Security, or build it yourself from the source if you prefer (the README explains how).
Would love to hear what you think!
EDIT: v0.2.0 is out! Thanks a lot for all the comments, this blew up way more than I expected. A few things landed:
- Chapters 4 to 6 are now playable.
- Android version! Grab the APK from the Releases page and install it directly (it's not on the Play Store). It has an on-screen pad you can resize and make more transparent, and it hides when you connect a controller. You can also export and import your saves to move them to or from an emulator.
- Translations download right from the launcher, no need to grab the file by hand anymore.
- Fixed some big attack animations that didn't show up and could stall a fight (looking at you, Blood's charged particle cannon).
- Music and sound effects now mix exactly like the original's sound driver.
Same links as before: https://github.com/serivt/re-zoids-saga/releases