[Queue]

Version 2020-10-24:
https://filebin.net/7spaiz2xfys6b2i1/SoM_Turbo.201024.zip

Changes:
- Updated Text\Event_Fixes; corrected a typo in a vanilla boss dialog (Time for yor punishment!)
- Finally fixed Technical\Safe_Save_State on real hardware (and higan)
- Added alternate track support to MSU-1 music feature:
-- Base or alternate have a 50/50 chance of playing
-- Name desired alternate music tracks with the same number +100
-- Example: track-8.pcm's alternate is track-108.pcm
-- Base track must exist for the alternate to be used (i.e. can't have 108 without 8)


"want to spend on this"
I strive for perfection. However, given that everything I do on this is for fun, I won't generally push myself beyond when it's still enjoyable to hammer away at. If it stops being fun to work on, I set it aside. That methodology has kept me going on this project for nearing 2 years now. When I started, I didn't expect to mess with this game for more than 2 or 3 months.

"test version"
I'll take you up on that. While I fear chasing you off with too many test requests, I also don't want to miss the chance to get this real hardware issue worked out while I can.

"so many features"
Tell me about it, and every time I start to add something I have to double-check that it's not conflicting with something that exists, or more insidiously, depending on something non-vanilla without me realizing.


Edit: Updated this post with new version.

[lightninghunter]

Great job on the new release, Queue! I am really enjoying the MSU alternate tracks. I wasn't quite sold on a lot of the Secret of Mana remake tracks, and the other MSU packs out there have only a few good tracks here and there.  I compiled my own edition with some of the alternate tracks being original tracks that I just couldn't part with (tracks like "Into the thick of it" can never be replaced by an MSU track, imo).

So far, the pause feature works flawlessly on my real hardware, but I will continue testing and let you know if I come across any bugs!
October 26, 2020, 01:48:33 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)Can I request an option for the available MP to be moved up? I play on an old CRT screen (the best way to play old games!), but CRTs don't always display things perfectly even...  In my case, the MP numbers are cut off, especially for the Sprite. I thought I remember reading the description in the ZPS patcher that this might happen (although I can't find it now), and it certainly does in my case! I wouldn't actually mind if the MP numbers cut slightly into the weapon recharging bars to fix this issue. This option could be unchecked by default and only available for CRT players like me.  Here is a screenshot:

https://i.imgur.com/TMMSJpy.jpg

By the way, you can have lots of fun with Balloon thanks to the new AI system in which they always follow you... I slept at Neko's Inn while the girl still had a Balloon over her head, and the animation got very funky. Lol. Don't know how this could be fixed or if it even needs to be fixed (I haven't had any bad effects besides graphical errors from this). Just thought I would mention it.

Edit: The setup I am using with SOM Turbo seems to make the Wall Face boss impossible to beat. I thought I remember Earth Slide doing 300+ damage in the original game, but for some reason it only does about 80-85 in the Turbo edition. I also have Enemy Stat modifiers set to 150%, which has been perfect for all the other bosses. For Wall Face, once you kill the left and right eyes, the Wall crushes you to death, and there is no way you can do 1,000+ damage that quickly. There is also no way you can kill the center eye with the left and right eyes alive, because they heal the center eye 150+ every 10 seconds or so (more than the damage I can dish out). Weapons also only do about 10-60 damage charged up, if they even hit at all. Wall Face will probably be the only difficult boss to beat, thanks to the elimination of chain-casting, the lower damage caused by Earth Slide, the higher HP of the boss, and the instant death when the wall crushes you. Is there any way this can be tweaked to be easier? I don't want to grind 5 levels, then have the rest of the game be too easy!

[Mr X]

Lightingthunder: The Wallface now has been changed to Gnome element with one of hmsong's patches (can't remember the name), use Undine spells instead.

I would suggest also to buy a MP restoring item or two, depending how much HP you set up for Bosses/enemies to have (I have it up to 5-6 times and I buy two Magic Walnuts for Wall face).

[lightninghunter]

Lightingthunder: The Wallface now has been changed to Gnome element with one of hmsong's patches (can't remember the name), use Undine spells instead.

I would suggest also to buy a MP restoring item or two, depending how much HP you set up for Bosses/enemies to have (I have it up to 5-6 times and I buy two Magic Walnuts for Wall face).

Ahhhh, I did not expect that! I will try Undine, thanks. I guess I need to unlearn years of programming with this game! And yes, I have 3 Walnuts, but they do no good. As I described above, the only time you can kill the center eye is when he is pushing you to the spikes.  At that time, you have 15 seconds to kill him before you die. I have chain-casting disabled with about a 4-second magic recharge time with my setup, so I only have time to cast maybe 4-5 spells during the "push of death" sequence (only one walnut needed for that). Undine just might do the trick though!

[Queue]

Can I request an option for the available MP to be moved up?

It's unfortunately not that straightforward else I would have long ago.
- For practical reasons, the digits have to be tile aligned, so they can only move by increments of 8 pixels
- The area where the attack charge bar shows gets constantly refreshed, so it's non-trivial to draw the digits within that row of tiles
- Putting it above the health looks really really bad

The middle one is what I've always wanted to do (put it within the attack charge area, where it'd just be hidden while charging), but have never gotten around to it. A lot of vanilla code that keeps resetting that area has to be worked around, and since I didn't write the code for the mana display (it's a feature of zhaDe's New Gameplay Improvement (NGI)) I've never looked into all the details of how it was implemented.

...but CRTs don't always display things perfectly even...

Years ago I had a TV sitting on a table that bowed in the middle, so the screen itself was slightly rotated, and as best as I can figure, over time the magnetic field aligned itself to gravity, so the image wasn't rotated relative to "down" (but was rotated itself relative to the physical screen); then later when it was on a properly flat surface, it took time to unrotate and be level again.

I slept at Neko's Inn while the girl still had a Balloon over her head, and the animation got very funky.

Yeah, I hate graphical glitches like that, but also something I've just never gotten around to dealing with.

The setup I am using with SOM Turbo seems to make the Wall Face boss impossible to beat.

Let me know how things fare after trying Freeze. I hate when early-game bosses are harder than late-game bosses in games. Not having Analyzer at that point makes it tough to discover changes of this sort, and that boss in particular has always been a bit of BS due to the hard DPS check. I have in mind a change I'd make, but like most SoM things, on the back burner while I'm working on SAP (link). While that thread hasn't seen an update in a bit, it's been worked on pretty much non-stop since we started, and is currently still consuming almost all of my SoM time.

[lightninghunter]

It's unfortunately not that straightforward else I would have long ago.
- For practical reasons, the digits have to be tile aligned, so they can only move by increments of 8 pixels
- The area where the attack charge bar shows gets constantly refreshed, so it's non-trivial to draw the digits within that row of tiles
- Putting it above the health looks really really bad

Yeah, I understand. I can't ask you to fix something that very few people will encounter!  After all, how many of us are left that have real hardware and a CRT?  xD

Years ago I had a TV sitting on a table that bowed in the middle, so the screen itself was slightly rotated, and as best as I can figure, over time the magnetic field aligned itself to gravity, so the image wasn't rotated relative to "down" (but was rotated itself relative to the physical screen); then later when it was on a properly flat surface, it took time to unrotate and be level again.

Lol, I don't know why my TV has that issue, but it could just be age.  I checked with a level, and the surface is perfectly even.  The TV itself has been moved so many times, it probably has structural issues if I had to guess...

Yeah, I hate graphical glitches like that, but also something I've just never gotten around to dealing with.

Nothing has been game-breaking by any means, so you really don't need to fix it. If anything, I actually found it amusing.

Let me know how things fare after trying Freeze. I hate when early-game bosses are harder than late-game bosses in games. Not having Analyzer at that point makes it tough to discover changes of this sort, and that boss in particular has always been a bit of BS due to the hard DPS check. I have in mind a change I'd make, but like most SoM things, on the back burner while I'm working on SAP (link). While that thread hasn't seen an update in a bit, it's been worked on pretty much non-stop since we started, and is currently still consuming almost all of my SoM time.

I should be able to attempt the boss again tonight.  I'll edit my post at that time and let you know if I succeed with Undine.
October 28, 2020, 03:30:57 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Got a chance to play quite a bit more tonight! I am really enjoying all the new features so far. Some of my favorites are:
-Day/Night Cycle - those mornings and evenings are beautiful!
-Ability to have original tracks alongside an MSU track and/or an alt MSU track
-Palette change of characters with new clothes
-Monster stat HP modifiers - for tougher to kill monsters
-Only one piece of each equipment at a time - this turned out way cooler than I expected!
-Magic recharge time - this should have been an original feature!

I also like lots of the smaller features such as opening treasure chests faster, charging weapons a bit quicker, being able to change direction running, having an alt-weapon equipped, and more.

Anyway, I managed to beat the Wall Face boss using Undine, although I barely won in the nick of time. I was around level 13 with Undine at Level 2, and I used two Faerie Walnuts. The boss wouldn't actually be hard if it wasn't for the 15 seconds you get for the "push of death" sequence to cause over 1,000 damage (I can't imagine if I had HP modifiers set to x2 instead of x1.5).

I also think I have encountered a few minor bugs:
-A woman inside Pandora's castle (after defeating Wall Face) says nothing.  If you enter the castle and go up, she is immediately to the right. Can't remember if she said nothing in the original game or not.
-The Sprite's Spear (LV3 Spear) appears Red while equipped even though the Ring menu shows it as blue. I only noticed because the Sprite's Spear was always one of my favorites with the nice blue color.

Is there an option to bring back Kilroy's Chainsaw? I know it's probably included in the Relocalized patch, but I actually prefer the classic names and don't want to enable it. I didn't see an option to get the Chainsaw Kilroy by itself!

[Queue]

Version 2020-10-29:
https://filebin.net/7spaiz2xfys6b2i1/SoM_Turbo.201029.zip

Changes:
- Bug fix for Bug_Fixes\Missable_Spear_Fix that could result in Luka saying gibberish given a very specific set of circumstances (VWF_Edition but not Relocalized, using a save made without Missable_Spear_Fix but after having obtained the spear and upgrading it at least once, then enabling Missable_Spear_Fix and visiting Luka)
- A couple Proper-caser-provided typo fixes applied to VWF_Edition and Relocalized
- Relocalized typo in event 139 added to Event_Fixes (an Spirit's -> a Spirit's)
- Large code re-engineering effort for how non-event text is handled in the Turbo project ZPS

While that final thing affects a wide swath of features, as long as I didn't make any mistakes, it should result in no change on the user end. Aside from cleaned up overlap between features (e.g. Proper-caser and Relocalized), a ROM patch from before and after this update should come out byte-for-byte identical. I spent days poring over the changes I was making, so hopefully no mistakes. It's in anticipation of integrating the results of the Script Augmentation Project once it's released; I've got some preemptive compatibility fixups worked out already.

-Only one piece of each equipment at a time - this turned out way cooler than I expected!

Yet it feels like some people think I killed their dog when I try to convince them it's better than it sounds on paper.

Anyway, I managed to beat the Wall Face boss using Undine, although I barely won in the nick of time. I was around level 13 with Undine at Level 2, and I used two Faerie Walnuts. The boss wouldn't actually be hard if it wasn't for the 15 seconds you get for the "push of death" sequence to cause over 1,000 damage (I can't imagine if I had HP modifiers set to x2 instead of x1.5).

Yeah, I hear you. I can imagine some potential ways to improve that, but it remains to be seen if I ever get around to trying any of them. I've been reluctant to touch any of the bosses because I don't generally like messing with narrow balance issues (i.e. single enemies), but the time limit here does present a unique problem.

-A woman inside Pandora's castle (after defeating Wall Face) says nothing.  If you enter the castle and go up, she is immediately to the right. Can't remember if she said nothing in the original game or not.

Vanilla issue. Fixed in yet to be released SAP. I may get around to fixing it for Vanilla / VWF Edition / Relocalized some day. It's if you talk to her after beating the Pandora Ruins.

-The Sprite's Spear (LV3 Spear) appears Red while equipped even though the Ring menu shows it as blue. I only noticed because the Sprite's Spear was always one of my favorites with the nice blue color.

Will have to check. I certainly didn't intentionally change any weapon colors. Heck, with Functional_Fashion, I specifically use the equipment icon colors as deference to the original game's creators' artistic choices.

Edit: Checking vanilla SoM, Sprite's Spear's icon is basically blue, wielded weapon art is basically red.

Is there an option to bring back Kilroy's Chainsaw? I know it's probably included in the Relocalized patch, but I actually prefer the classic names and don't want to enable it. I didn't see an option to get the Chainsaw Kilroy by itself!

Kilroy doesn't (and never did) have a chainsaw. The later near clone of him, Kettle Kin, does (and drill legs instead of a wheel), which is restored by Miscellaneous\Restore_Kettle_Kin. It's not tied to Relocalized (and Relocalized had it because I provided it).

Kettle Kin's animations were cut from the English version to make space for more text. His animation scripts were in bank 0x0A ($CA) in the Japanese version, which is where the second half of all event scripts (text) and almost all non-event text is as well (in both Japanese and English). In hindsight, they probably ultimately had enough room and could have kept him (bank 0x0A has at least 0x88C unused bytes while Kettle Kin's animation scripts take 0x828 bytes), but they were supposedly on a very short time limit to localize the game so hurriedly cleared some space to work with (Kettle Kin and especially the Title Screen background suffered to make space).

[kethinov]

- Putting it above the health looks really really bad

Might be worth making this an off-by-default option just so people in that situation have a workaround, assuming it's trivial to implement and not a nightmare like trying to put it in the charge bar.

[lightninghunter]

Edit: Checking vanilla SoM, Sprite's Spear's icon is basically blue, wielded weapon art is basically red.

Hmm, interesting. I always remember having a blue spear, but maybe it wasn't the Sprite's spear that was blue? I'm sure I just never noticed before, and I'm sure my memory switched something.

Kilroy doesn't (and never did) have a chainsaw. The later near clone of him, Kettle Kin, does (and drill legs instead of a wheel), which is restored by Miscellaneous\Restore_Kettle_Kin. It's not tied to Relocalized (and Relocalized had it because I provided it).

Thanks for clearing that up.  I knew there were two Kilroy style bosses, but for some reason I thought it was Kilroy modified by the Relocalized patch. Well, thanks for providing this patch. Can't wait to encounter Kettle Kin now!

[Queue]

Version 2020-10-30:
https://filebin.net/7spaiz2xfys6b2i1/SoM_Turbo.201030.zip

Changes:
- Implemented Quality_of_Life\MP_Shown_Within_Status_Area

While MP_Shown_Within_Status_Area can be used along with MP_Shown_Below_Status_Area, it's a bit silly to do so, so "Within" is now the default, with "Below" being off by default. It works on a fairly different principle ("Below" checks for changes to current mana and updates its customized region of the HUD when it changes, while "Within" hooks code that changes the HUD and code that changes current mana and supplies different tile numbers for otherwise vanilla HUD code), but both should always display accurately and identically, with the exception of the non-standard circumstance where a player has more than 99 mana.

"Within" is currently designed to show mana in place of the weapon charge level ratio numeric display (patent pending), unless a player is currently charging a melee attack. AI controlled characters will always show mana (if they are a spell caster) and not the charge level ratio, though the charge gauge will still be visible if the AI is charging up an attack.

[lightninghunter]

Great job on the new MP location, Queue. I definitely like that position better than the last one below the bar.  It also no longer reminds me that my CRT is getting old and lopsided. Lol.

I am slowly progressing through the game (taking me a while, since life is busy). I have a few more questions/requests. I noticed there is no option with the MSU patch to replace the Dancing beasts (track 22) echo version.  I read somewhere this is its own track rather than merely an echo effect, so I would think it could have an option to be replaced with an MSU file (I could be wrong). As it is now, the echo version is merely a quieter version of the MSU-22 track I have set. I know it's only with one screen in the cave, but I sure miss the original echo version of Dancing beasts!

Also, I feel like I have discovered one too many axe and glove orbs in my playthrough. I have the "no missing orb" patch applied, which I understand adds a missing axe and glove orb. However, my axe at moogle village is at level 4 (I upgraded straight from 2 to 4, and didn't even use 3), and my glove is also at 4. Meanwhile, my Javelin is still at level 2, and the rest of my weapons at 3. The axe in particular seems way too overpowered at this point of the game. Perhaps the 3rd Javelin orb could be found at Moogle village instead of the axe orb, and have the axe orb found in the chest at Matango (swap the Javelin and Axe orbs)? That might be more balanced.

Anyway, having a lot of fun with this hack so far!

[kethinov]

There is a hack for that, which is my Level 9 Weapons Progression Balance. It was designed to address that issue and to supersede the "No Missing Orb" hack.

[lightninghunter]

There is a hack for that, which is my Level 9 Weapons Progression Balance. It was designed to address that issue and to supersede the "No Missing Orb" hack.

I saw that hack in the list, but I unchecked it because I don't actually like the idea of obtaining all 9 orbs before reaching the Mana fortress. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy spending time farming for the 9th orb of each weapon in the fortress. I do like the "no missing orb" fix though, because farming for two axe orbs and two glove orbs is too extreme, even for me!

[kethinov]

There is a hack for that as well: Level 8 Weapons Progression Balance, available here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4309/

I don't recall if it's integrated into the Turbo patcher yet though.

[lightninghunter]

There is a hack for that as well: Level 8 Weapons Progression Balance, available here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4309/

I don't recall if it's integrated into the Turbo patcher yet though.

The level 8 weapons progression patch looks like just a variant of the "No Missing Orbs" hack.  Instead of finding the orbs earlier in the game, you find them at the underground city. It also looks like it adds the Mana sword (orb 9) to the Mana tree sequence, which conflicts with the "farmable sword orb" hack included with turbo. I am personally curious to see what that hack does with the unused monster in the Mana fortress and all.

[kethinov]

Level 8 Weapons Progression Balance places them in a better spot in the game so you don't end up with the "doubled up" problem you described before. The Underground City is always where those orbs were supposed to be. The fact that they don't spawn there is actually a bug in the original game.

The Mana Sword upgrade part is optional. Read the README content more closely:

"To suit more modest tastes, there are also two subvariants to choose from bundled with this hack:

- Level 8 Weapons Progression Balance: Includes only the new axe and glove orb chests in the Underground City plus the new money chests.
- Mana Tree Grants Mana Sword: Includes only the changes that give you the 9th sword orb when the Mana Tree dies and the new money chests.
- Those two subvariants can be combined if desired."

[lightninghunter]

Level 8 Weapons Progression Balance places them in a better spot in the game so you don't end up with the "doubled up" problem you described before. The Underground City is always where those orbs were supposed to be. The fact that they don't spawn there is actually a bug in the original game.

The Mana Sword upgrade part is optional. Read the README content more closely:

"To suit more modest tastes, there are also two subvariants to choose from bundled with this hack:

- Level 8 Weapons Progression Balance: Includes only the new axe and glove orb chests in the Underground City plus the new money chests.
- Mana Tree Grants Mana Sword: Includes only the changes that give you the 9th sword orb when the Mana Tree dies and the new money chests.
- Those two subvariants can be combined if desired."

Hmm, well maybe it would be a good alternative to the "No Missing Orbs" patch in that case.

[Mr X]

You can still fight the unused monster in the mana fortress without the need to farm the sword orb if you want to try it out.

[Queue]

Version 2020-11-03:
https://filebin.net/7spaiz2xfys6b2i1/SoM_Turbo.201103.zip

Changes:
- Added [Level_8_Instead] and [No_Level_9_Sword] sub-options to Kethinov's Items\Weapons_Progression_Balance
- Improved Balance\Persistent_Saber_Buffs to not discolor status effects that use a fake "weapon" to display graphics (barrel, engulf, balloon, dead)
- Fixed Quality_of_Life\MP_Shown_Within_Status_Area to update the mana display when an event refills mana (sleeping at an inn, getting rejuvenated by an NPC, etc.)
- Implemented Balance\Wall_Face_-_Uncrushable_Barrels; guess what that does

I had not integrated Kethinov's Level 8 Weapons Progression Balance prior to now. I'm not actually happy with how I did so and may want to revisit it sometime to clean up how I implemented it. It would probably be less messy if I have Level 8 be the baseline and layer Level 9 on top of it, rather than the mostly mutually exclusive approach I took (which resulted in lots of wasteful duplication).

Note that I'm not entirely sure how well Remove_Empire_Castle_Gate's weapon orb changes interact with Weapons_Progression_Balance + Level_8_Instead. Remove_Empire_Castle_Gate takes precedence, but I'm not sure if it throws weapon level progression out of whack (by making some weapons jump ahead / fall behind at that point in the game).

I also made a tiny tweak to Level_8_Instead: in Kethinov's original version, he left a level 1 Bow orb chest in the Fire Palace that is functionally unobtainable (due to boss orb drops, you'll have the level 2 Bow orb at this point, minimum); I promoted it to level 3, the same as from Boreal Face, which should mean it's a slight bonus if you sneak into the Fire Palace early (and should mean the Northtown Ruins Bow orb chest won't spawn if you do so, thus re-normalizing Bow level).

The Wall Face change was sorta nuts to implement (and reinforces my disinterest in modifying boss code). Regardless, it let me make use of an apparently unused squinting center eye animation (which needed a vulnerable region added to it to allow melee attacks to hit it). I also added a blocking region to his closed center eye to give some audible feedback on melee hits that are connecting but failing to do damage.


lightninghunter, the echoey version of Dancing Animals is not its own track; SPC music allows reverb to be applied. Not sure where you read it was its own track, but... nope. I can't think of a reasonable way to have the MSU music system select a different track based on arbitrary SPC effect flags (vanilla songs use every value 0-F except 1, and I'm not 100% sure they're all reverb-related, or even if they don't have song-specific meaning) and I'd prefer to avoid a song-specific hack. If you want to be able to experience that song echoey, I think the most practical option is to remove MSU track 22 (0x16). =/

I didn't make any of the weapon orb location altering features (and I don't intend to since I don't generally like messing with balance in that targeted of a manner; if I'm going to, it's with sweeping changes to overarching mechanics). As you saw, No_Missing_Orb is straightforward and just seeks to make the missing-in-vanilla glove and axe orbs available, but ends up skewing weapon progression balance. Kethinov's various Weapons Progression Balance patches are more thorough, but I hadn't gotten around to integrating the Level 8 variant until now.

[Mr X]

Honestly I would be fine with the Wall Face simply having a weakness to gnome you know. Throw boulders and gem missiles to destroy the wall instead of splashing water.

It's not like the players will suddenly open a document to find out that the Wall is a sylphid element, analyze only shows the magic they are weak at not what element the monster is.

Not entirely sold out by hmsong's enemy changes, but I still like some things on it.