Good evening RHDN,
I am sharing some files that I began working on back in 2013-2014 , but never ended up completing for a few reasons. I am hoping that someone can make use of these, to help create some neat mods. These are edited field files which aim to restore cut / unused content from the original FF7 Japanese release, such as some scenes that mention Sephiroth as Cloud's motivation to do what he does, some extra conversations that flesh out the members of Avalanche a little more, and probably most importantly.. re-introduce the original Honey Bee Inn! The files are all usable on FF7US, and although I have not tested them in a playthrough since 2014, everything up to the entrance of the Shinra tower worked just fine, although I just stopped testing past this point due to some life changes.
HistorySo a long while ago, I ran into an amazing deep-dive from Shademp over at TheLifeStream.net ,
https://thelifestream.net/ffvii-the-original/final-fantasy-vii-the-unused-text-series/. I reached out to Shademp back in 2013 and asked if I could look at the files he was working on, since I was curious as to whether they could be imported into the US game to create a sort of "Director's Cut" mod for the game, and he was happy to oblige. I did work with the files, and using his articles as a guide I was able to restore some of the alternate scenes in other fields too.
The files he supplied did not contain formatted text boxes, as they were ripped from the original Japanese release which contained no English text. Due to this, I had to go back in and add text, set conversation choices, etc. But there is no denying that Shademp's work was immense!
My original plan was to import DLPB's (at the time) WIP retranslation script to the PS1 release, and modify existing text to line up with it, however I initially put the project on hold after Green_Goblin began his own project, which lead to the retranslation patch we currently have here on RHDN:
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2340/ . My plan was to then make my own "Director's Cut" project an addendum to his eventual release, and I ended up putting my work on hold until it was complete. I was maybe 50% done with the line-by-line migration at that point, but work and family life took all my time. Once his patch did come out, I did go back through and attempted to continue work on it again.. but unfortunately some big things came up which again took my focus, so it all sat on my hard drive, unused. T
I eventually decided to myself that I would release something to line-up with the FF7 Remake release, but I suffered a large scale hard drive crash and thought I lost everything. Luckily, about 2 weeks ago I found a backup I had made in 2016, likely when I was trying to alter text so it would become consistent with the retranslation patch. I figured it was maybe time to just put this stuff out on the internet so someone else can work with it instead instead of just laying here, going to waste.
What exactly is included in this archive?So this is mostly a mix of Shademp's files that I made completely playable, and stuff mentioned in his through to maybe scenes involving the Highwind. I did originally work on some of the things like the alternative form of the Mayor's guessing game in Shinra HQ, but I think the re-translation patch actually ended up handling that nicely, so I don't think the files were kept.
These are .dat files that need to be imported into an FF7 NTSC-U ISO, and I believe they require an edited kernel file due to an increase in the disk size. Green_Goblin's release is edited in this manner, and works great as a base. Most of the files should be formatted to match that patch, so they include things like character names being a different color in text-boxes, colored names for Materia, materia icons, etc.
Most of the cut content was during the early parts of the game, between Midgar and the flashback at Kalm, so that is mostly what you will have here. The files all worked for me during my testing, I just never finished it.
I did my testing on a PS3 with Custom firmware, and played it using the built-in PS1 emulator. I also did test it on PCSX and ePSXe when I was trying to trouble shoot any bugs I came across, and to test that I was formatting text correctly.
Bugs!Now there are some bugs that I ran across, that I honestly lacked the knowledge to permanently fix. These are based on notes I took back in 2014, so I cannot be more specific about them unfortunately..
1) On the map MRKT3 (Outside the Honeybee Inn) would occasionally freeze on me when I walked outside to talk to Aeris, in order to progress the story. It would either freeze when I was talking to her, or when I would walk to a certain part of the map without her in my party.. I could replicate it over and over, but I couldn't find out why it was happening.
2) On ONNA_1 (Honeybee Inn Downstairs Lobby), the line of people would reset every time I left the building, meaning you would need to wait to be served at the front desk AND watch an event with Palmer every time. I am sure there was some sort of progression value I was missing, but I couldn't find a working solution to it. It isn't game breaking, it was just annoying. Oddly, the dialogue with an NPC in the room that was needed to progress the story didn't reset, so it is specific to the other NPCs.
3) ONNA_3 (A new Honeybee Inn room) did have working waypoints for the door to come in, and leave, but I don't think this set of files included the final one I had worked on before my HDD crash. I believe you can enter the room fine, but then you are teleported onto a piece of furniture and cannot walk due to the map collision. I know for a fact that this is easy to fix, but I apparently cannot channel 2014 me for guidance.
4) During one of the last ever tests I did, I apparently ran into a freeze after Cloud went into the 7th Heaven's basement to speak with Avalanche for the first time. There is a set of events that should play out, and it froze when transitioning to one of them. I did not have issues with it during my other tests, so I can't tell if maybe I had patched the ISO badly or if I broke something else.
Here is the archive link:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zx7koy5pauus0x1/Final+Fantasy+VII+PS1+Restored+Scenes.rar/file. I did also put a text document in there going over a few things. Now, I will not do any bug support or trouble shooting on this moving forward, so apologies in advance. I may still attempt to make a personal Director's Cut patch and release it "as-is" incase someone else wants to attempt to make a more final product out of it.
I will answer any questions I can though, as long as they aren't about fixing bugs
Topic: Final Fantasy 7 - Cut Content Mod (Read 2749 times)