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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: How practical is this project?

« on: January 21, 2021, 03:17:13 pm »

You can write standalone GBA homebrew, can even probably do it all in C (though some inline assembly might help) -- plenty of really nice long form games exist there, and would still fit with the "runs on GBA hardware" thing if that is somehow a thing you want to do. https://devkitpro.org/ being where most would start with that today for that one.
As it stands I am no great artist, not much of a UI designer, would call myself a ROM hacker, know ARM assembly, a mediocre C coder at best and the GBA is very much in my wheelhouse. I would still pick homebrew from the ground up for making a fan game over hacking a ROM as a basis for a whole new game.

Honestly because I thought hacking an already existing ROM would be easier I hadn't considered this way of going about things. Based on what you're saying though it sounds like building the ROM from scratch would probably be my best bet, so long as I can still achieve the same results of course. It's very unlikely I'd be able to manage this alone however (at least without many many years of experience) so I may opt to higher a professional instead. I know this may be hard to answer but do you have any idea what the price tag for such a project might look like? I'm sure it's going to be pretty high up there but exactly how high I'm unsure of.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: How practical is this project?

« on: January 21, 2021, 08:57:54 am »

That said total conversions certainly benefit from assembly skills but are not necessarily beholden to them -- level layouts, text, graphics, much of the internal logic (especially if you are more concerned with some simple numbers to keep the "feel" of the game) and music are all quite editable without them, and indeed editing those with assembly is only really more of a sure fire way of finding out the formats rather than more interpretive ways.

Given the elements you listed comprise to bulk of my changes, this is very reassuring. Just out of curiosity do you happen to know what tools developers typically use when developing their games to make the process simpler? Do they tend to develop editors similar to the kind hackers do or do they have different ways of going about it?

I don't understand how you arrived at that realization without knowing the difficulties involved. If there were many existing hacks of FFIV Advance and a well-refined toolset that is widely used, then that might make sense, but I am familiar with no such thing. In fact, many seem to regard the FFIV Advance engine as being deeply flawed, as FFIV ports go.

On the other hand, it was my understanding that at least some versions of RPG Maker are flexible and easily expanded as required.  Or if not RPG Maker, then one of the various other game creation engines would surely be suitable.

The reason I ultimately decided against RPG Maker or a similar game engine was because of how much of what I want can be achieved with the FF GBA games. Because what I'll be doing (more or less) is just assembling elements from the classic FF titles (five of which exist on the system) and putting a fresh coat of paint on them it makes to me that I'd use all the existing assets available. Another factor is precision; I want absolutely EVERYTHING to mimic to style and feel of an FF whether it be character animations or even something trivial such as the design of the battle HUD. Finally, and this is admittedly more of a personal thing, developing it for the same system that the others were released on just feels more authentic than developing it for modern hardware. I would very much like to be able to load the ROM onto a flash cart, print out a label and maybe even box art for it, and play it in my actual GBA one day.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / How practical is this project?

« on: January 20, 2021, 02:26:40 pm »

Hey all, I have a question for the more experienced hackers and/or those who have worked on larger projects in the past. I've been working on a full-scale Final Fantasy fan game on and off for almost 6 years now which first began as an RPG Maker game before I realized that hacking an already existing ROM would likely get me closer to my desired results. The game is still very much in the design stage but I've had a lot more time to work on it recently and have been thinking more about what exactly would be required to make this project a reality. I intend to create all the conceptual elements (characters, scenario, etc.) and already have someone IRL who has offered to create all the concept art for the game which just leaves the technical side of things to consider.

This is where I'd like a reality check: at present I plan to use the FFIV Advance engine as a base for the hack and with nearly all the assets (animations, music, formulas, etc.) taken straight from the other FF Advance games, save for a few exceptions such as creating new sprites for the game's original characters as well as recomposing tracks from FF games on other systems using the GBA's sound engine. Needless to say, a hack on this scale would require someone intimate with the GBA's assembly as the implementation of the changes would likely entail a complete disassembly and reassembly of the ROM.

So I guess what I'm wondering is, how practical is what I'm looking to do? I'm about to graduate with a minor in CS so I have a good understanding of programming fundamentals and some degree of proficiency in at least C++, but how well would that translate to learning assembly? I've been interested in learning more about assembly languages more generally since I first took an interest in ROM hacking back in high school but I'm not sure it'd be worth the large investment in time if it turns out what I'm wanting to do isn't feasible anyway.

In the case that I couldn't create my desired end-product myself, what are the odds that I could hire some who can? I've seen some very impressive fan projects in the past so there must be enthusiasts knowledgeable enough to do so out there, but how would I go about finding them? I know it probably seems silly to go to such lengths just for a fan project but I'm incredibly passionate about making this game happen and am more than willing to invest money in hiring experienced developers if that's what it takes.

TL;DR: I want to make a full-fledged Final Fantasy fan game using assets from other GBA FF games but know next to nothing about how to implement these changes. Am I in over my head? If so, where could I find professionals willing to work on this project?

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy IV -Postlude-

« on: August 25, 2017, 01:54:01 pm »

To clarify:

If this takes place post-TAY, then the bands just up and not being used ever again is going to be kinda weird, storywise, anyway.

Ohhh okay now I understand. I honestly hadn't even thought about that as I never even considered bands to be incredibly important to the story. There are a few "event" bands, but none of them are actually used in cut scenes or anything like that. In fact, I'd say that if you never used bands when playing TAY then you won't even notice they aren't present in the hack.

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy IV -Postlude-

« on: August 25, 2017, 10:59:25 am »

I kinda hope you figured out a way to explore why banding doesn't work anymore - weakened magic?

I don't think I understand what you mean. This is a hack of FFIV (SNES) so there aren't any bands.

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Personal Projects / Final Fantasy IV -Postlude-

« on: August 24, 2017, 10:33:36 pm »

Final Fantasy IV -Postlude-

Introduction

This project is a continuation of The After Years, the sequel to the original Final Fantasy IV. It is a mostly story driven hack that explores the lives of the characters as depicted during the ending of TAY. The game play is very lax as more focus has been directed towards further developing the characters. It is designed to be accessible to all players and thus the difficulty is not exaggerated.

Story

The hack begins immediately where the end credits of The After Years left off. Ceodore, Kain, Cid, and Luca are bound for Damcyan to begin restoring the world following the near apocalypse. The hack follows Ceodore as the main protagonist, however many other characters play their own part in the story such as Ursula becoming more independent in her training and Leonora finally following her dream of becoming a Sage. Emphasis is especially placed upon characters introduced in TAY who have yet to receive the personal development they deserve.

Features

• 13 playable characters from both Final Fantasy IV and The After Years
• Updated battle, overworld, and menu character sprites
• Newly added Weapons, Armor, and Magic introduced in The After Years
• An enhanced translation that more closely resembles modern day terms
• Areas restored to reflect their appearance as seen in The After Years
• A post-game Challenge Dungeon designed for veteran players

Screenshots

Download

-Available Now!-
Download version 0.1.0 by clicking here!
Note: This will be updated periodically as more progress is made so check back frequently for updates.

Credits

Original Hacking - Spindaboy
Character Portraits - Takfloyd

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Googie wants to hack Zelda 1...

« on: May 05, 2017, 04:16:38 pm »

Then please change the thread title - to better reflect your unwillingnes to hack Zelda.

/dACE

Please ignore this user in particular. All he does is come on this site to harass other actual content creators.

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Newcomer's Board / Re: FF I Bugs

« on: May 04, 2017, 02:04:19 pm »

It depends on if the newcomer's board is for newcomers to romhacking.net or newcomers to romhacking.

It IS a noob misstake to use somebody else's editor - on somebody else's hack and experience loss of functionality. I know - becasue I have been there myself. It was then I decided to learn how to HACK roms instead of just EDITING roms.

/dACE

(Deleted)

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Zelda 1 Sprite Hacking

« on: April 29, 2017, 11:37:35 am »

Graphics in that game don't line up cleanly on a 16-byte boundary.

In whatever graphic editor you're using, see if you can adjust the offset by a single byte.  That should shift all the graphics into place if you hit it a few times.

I got it, thanks!

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Zelda 1 Sprite Hacking

« on: April 29, 2017, 11:16:18 am »

I'm having some difficulty viewing the item and Link's sprites properly. They almost appear as what they should look like in game, however there is a single line in each sprite that is missing making it hard to edit them correctly.

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy I Redux [COMPLETE]

« on: April 27, 2017, 02:51:56 pm »

Good thing my hacks fixes a lot of the previously mentioned problems! 

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy I Redux [COMPLETE]

« on: April 26, 2017, 08:54:28 am »

Really? Thought they'd fixed it in FF2. Maybe just thinking of the remakes..

Yeah, it was FF III, however magic targeting was still not fixed until FF IV.

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy I Redux [COMPLETE]

« on: April 22, 2017, 09:55:38 pm »

But yeah if you want to throw me a copy of the patch in PM or something, this will be a fun little mini project. 

Sweet! Thanks a lot man I'll send you a PM right now.

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy I Redux [COMPLETE]

« on: April 22, 2017, 09:23:43 pm »

I'm 100% sure I could do that.

The problem is the patch I make would probably be incompatible with your hack.

Could you patch the ROM with my hack, and then make the required changes?

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy I Redux [COMPLETE]

« on: April 22, 2017, 06:17:15 pm »

This hack is very interesting and looks great. It seems to really improve the game while keeping more faithful to the original than GFF (but less faithful than FF restored). It's definitely interesting - it's harder and harder to know which version to play

Thank you! I do plan on eventually adding in just a couple minor additions and bug fixes so be on the lookout for updates

By the way it seems my (small) no-menu music fix is used. I really appreciate my work to be useful to other hacks, however I'd really aprecitate if I was given credit to. I know it was not a major work to get this done, but still.

Credit has been added to the hack page (must be approved first of course). I really appreciate that patch by the way

Something that'd be really great would be to know in shops who can equip weapons and spells (like in the later games, by having characters doing victory dance animation when you select a spell or weapon that is compatible with them). Unfortunately, I already looked hard at how to get this done and finally I gave up. I don't even remember if I did that with the help of Dish' disassembly or if it was before it came out. In all chases, changing it to do that would be hard especially since free ROM would have to be found somewhere.

That would certainly make things easier. If anyone ever finds a way to do that I will gladly add it to the hack Until then all equip-ability can be viewed in the readme file.

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy I Redux

« on: April 19, 2017, 11:27:46 am »

Would like to at least see AstralEsper properly credited on the hack page. She spent over 6 years working on FF Restored.

After that is done, I might give it a go.

Well the credits are submitted- just waiting approval. I understand you, her, and others worked very hard on FF Restored and I greatly appreciate it. I never meant to take the deserved credit away from anybody.

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Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy I Redux

« on: April 19, 2017, 04:02:57 am »

The hack is now complete and v1.0.0 has been released! Please please please leave feedback on what you think of it and what I can improve on for the next update (please report bugs too). It's hard to know what people would like to see when almost no one says anything

Oh yeah and I made a Trailer. Hope everyone enjoys!

~Spinda

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Newcomer's Board / Re: FF I Bugs

« on: April 16, 2017, 09:24:09 am »

Come on - is that really such a surprise?

/dACE

Yes, it is. Because it isn't a noob question nor am I new to the community. I asked a genuine question looking for a genuine response.

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Newcomer's Board / Re: FF I Bugs

« on: April 15, 2017, 07:22:41 am »

Seriously? Someone moved this thread to the Newcomer's Board? Okay then.

40

Newcomer's Board / Re: FF I Bugs

« on: April 13, 2017, 12:26:42 pm »

There is only 1 battle theme in all of FF1.  From IMPs, to minibosses, to fiends, to the final boss himself -- every battle uses the exact same song.

Yes, but I'm using FF Restored as the base for my hack which adds mini boss, fiend, and final boss battle tracks.

??  There is no default equipment??

I'm trying to do what Grond did by changing the values next to each Job's starting stats. It (theoretically) should work and start them with said equipment.