Hello!

At least hello to all of you that are still following this page and waiting patiently for us to finish up the demo. We have a bunch of news for things some of them good and some of them not as good so I will get right into things.

We got very close to finally finishing the demo. As Deckiller was adding some polish to some maps (aka remapping them completely in some cases), we had several discussions about how to really make the game stand out and pop from the herd of typical RM games as well as the swath of games using Time Fantasy resources now.

Ultimately, we came to the decision that it would require some custom art commissions. Luckily, it just so happened that I had a small windfall so I had some money to put into these art commissions. I spent quite a days in December talking to several pixel artist about things that we needed. After several message exchanges with handful of them as well as ordering some sample pieces of things here and there... One thing that was important is all this had to be in 12 to 16 bit styles utilizing existing TF colors or allow for us to recolor them with existing TF colors. I finally settled on two artists that are now at work on the upgrades.

• One artist is handling one of the more tedious upgrades... The battle system. We found someone to redo the battlers in isometric (3/4th view) for both the actor battlers and the enemy battlers.
  
• The other artist is handling the other upgrades... busts for the recruitable characters and important npcs as well as some UI upgrades, the tiny armies clashing during the army battles, and the isometric battlebacks.
  

So we were now in a lull waiting on commissions as we ran into the holiday season. This would ultimately slow commissions down as one artist won't start until tomorrow and the other one was just busy so had minimal time to work on the commissions.

I also had to take some time away to work on a game for my son that I was making in MZ. After using MZ for several weeks I found I really liked it so when I returned focus to LSDX it prompted a new research project after seeing several people say that it was quite simple to convert from MV to MZ. After discussing with Deckiller who had been using MZ for one of his games he agreed that if was worth it if we could do it.

Since we wanted to add some QoL things to the event code and maps (like light flashing arrows for door/passage indicators) during another polish run of the event codes and we are waiting on commissions it was a good time to test it. I am happy to report that we tried it out this weekend.

All plugins have been replaced with their MZ equals at this point and I have started combing the code polish it and make use of MZ's upgrades with Plugin Commands. I have not experienced any bumps at all... and additionally some of the systems that I thought I had to toss out because of MV's issues I was able to bring back with available MZ functions or plugins that were not broken and played nicely with all the other plugins we used.

Additionally... I pretty much was able to take the plugin count from like 100+ to less than 40 since most of VisuMZ Plugins handled the functions of multiple YEP MV Plugins. A bonus is that I am also getting to upgrade the Dueling and Army Minigame HUDs because of an MZ plugin.

All in all the next round of polish that we hopefully finish off this week or next week while we are waiting on commissions to finish will complete 90% of the demo and 100% of the MV to MZ migration. Then it is just closing up the odds and ends to connect all the systems together so the demo story flows from start to finish... and applying all the new fancy artwork to the demo then rebalancing the battle system and tweaking the position codes for isometric battles.

I want to say it will be sooner than later, but I want to give myself enough room to work on the off-chance that commissions or medical things pop up again so I am tentative (again I know) saying by end of March 2021 for the demo to release.

The rest of the game shouldn't take as long beyond the demo for several reasons.

• All subsystems are finished and programmed so they just need to be applied to the later parts of the story.
  
• Most of the demo is original content developed as part of LSDX mixed with a bit of the original intro whereas there is only a handful of original content added to later parts of the game so quite a bit of the dialogue/event code can be lifted from the 2k/2k3 versions.
  
• Future Art Commissions of the upgraded stuff will be happening at the same time as development or long before their are needed in the development cycle instead of having to wait on it to apply new things to the game.
  

The final piece of this long announcement happens to just be an update on something I had announced last year when we were given permission to go commercial with the game. Matt, the original creator of LS, was going to try to get involved in the development somewhat, but a new baby in combination with several other indie projects he was working on kept him busy this year. Now, it looks like he should be able to jump in the fold just shortly into the new year. We are planning another meeting to finalize details around his involvement with the project. Fingers crossed that we will have some more exciting news to announce in the coming weeks.

I don't know. I don't know when it will be done at this point. My medical issues are causing a lot of problems for me, and I've been taking some strong drugs for them. Between the pain and the medicine I haven't been overly productive since the end of June.

It has been very frustrating. However, tomorrow should be the day I get something that should help. It should take two weeks to see if it works then hopefully I can get back to being productive.

Other good news I did send Deckiller the Alpha_0.85b of the demo tonight for testing. It has all the story elements up to the final battle of DX's first dungeon. What this means is it is currently missing:

• The battles aren't completely implemented at this moment as I need to program the Action Sequences and enemy abilities.
  
• The first war battle is not currently implemented. I had a tactical movement plugin finished about a month ago because I couldn't make the movement work with events. I need to implement it and finish the rest of the war system now.
  
• I need to add the post-boss battle scene, the return to the king, and the scenes leading to the first war battle.
  
• Polish. Probably a lot more than I am expecting.
  

You might ask... is it done yet? To that I'd have to say no. Then you might ask what the hell have you been doing for 8 months to that I would have to answer not as much as I should have or wanted to do.

Does that mean there is no update? Absolutely... not. There has been some stuff worked on during this time.

• Maps for the game are pretty much 100% done unless I missed one here or there that I won't realize until I get to that section of the game. However, we took a critical look at the newer maps and much older maps during this time too. We decided to redo several maps during that time. The remapping is done too, though we might have a few tweaks here or there.
  
• Battle System is currently functioning properly with the proper numbers. Durane's battler is completed. There is a long way to completing all of the battlers though.
  
• I am redoing the intro with the new maps in mind. Some of the original intro is salvageable so it won't be completely from scratch.
  
• Durane's dueling sprite is completed, and let me tell you... now I want to do the entire battle system in the 3/4th view, but I won't. I'll save it for the dueling sections.
  
• All plugins at this time seem to be functioning correctly as intended. Until we are deep into things that use the various plugins we won't know 100% but right now there doesn't seem to be any plugin errors!
  

In other big news... A demo is fully planned out. It is more of a tech demo of the three main components of the game. We have set a target goal for the end of July.

• The Dueling System: If you've played Suikoden then you will probably be familiar with this concept/system. The duel will happen between Prince Durane and General Yuta... yeah, you heard that right. The duel will happen before his retirement from the Meluvetian Military. Did you know he was in the Meluvetian Military? He was.
  
• The Battle System: While it will include some of the opening dialogue that is just to set the stage for the first dungeon of the game. It is completely original and new to Legion Saga DX; the Royal Crypts in Bargon City. This will part will include 4 of the characters from the game: Durane, Eva, Kamza, and just for flavor (will not be in the actual game) General Yuta.
  
• The War System: This might be the hardest and take the longest to complete, and I'll be honest it is because I am still completely uncertain which type of war system I want to use for the game. But I know the scene will be the initial attack on Seimu! An original war scene for the demo for clarification this is not the original LS/LSR opening sequence. This would take place just prior to that. It may or may not make it into the actual game depending on the game flow.
  
  Just some examples of the remaps that I mentioned earlier are below!
  Old Bargon Castle
  
  
  
  
  New Bargon Castle
  
  
  
  
  Old Seimu Village
  
  
  
  
  New Seimu Village
  
  

Well...

August is almost over. Not as much work as I would have liked to get done, but it wasn't a complete waste of the month. We are both ramping back up more and more though.

These were the following things completed or put into production in August:

• Deckiller is working on the last 5% of the maps, and any type of clean up on maps that is needed.
  
• New title screen has been planned out. This is just because my photoshop abilities have improved and is a new center piece map that we plan to reveal with the title screen.
  
• The game intro was nearly complete but now has to be transferred to the newer maps and tweaked for them.
  
• We have planned the demo out of the game out and are pushing for an end of October release right now, but that is dependent on some art commissions being completed for the battle system by then.
  
• In regards to Battle System, we have been quite active recently in planning the battle system which was one of the remaining pieces for the introduction/demo. I am currently on a three day weekend from work so I am implementing the battle system so it can be tested.
  
• I have been critically pruning plugins as I moved things to the new Master version of the game to cut down on incompatibilities and bloat.
  

In retrospect, maybe we did achieve more than I realized! I'll see you guys next month!

Things have been very slow at Legion HQ in the recent months. Part of the idea behind the announcement about Legion Saga DX being able to go commercial was to help generate some hype and movement which in turn would generate more motivation to work on things. It only lasted a short time until it slowed down again.

Things got to a grinding stop for a while due to personal and work-related issues for both Deckiller and myself. We just didn't have the time or energy to focus on things, but I can tell you that we have been slowly ramping back up development in the last month.

I just got back from a much needed vacation back home to Arizona which interrupted the flow that I had been working on, but honestly I feel better about things then I had before. The break in game development allowed me to come back with fresh eyes and has helped me put together several of the possible beginnings that I had started but scrapped.

There has been some new releases for Time Fantasy (or new announcements) that have us excited because we can now do one of the dungeons that we wanted to include at the beginning of development: The Gurgass Tree.

I am going to endeavor to provide monthly updates again and keep things active around here. I want to thank everyone that has been following us for your patience.