Tales of Phantasia SNES (Enhancement) (Slow WIP)

[justin3009]

1. I plan to prevent that for all characters probably by some sort of extra memory storage to make sure it doesn't do that >.< It's really annoying.

2.  I have never heard of that bug to be honest.  I know it blows up your holy bottles but I have never heard of it turning into a chicken.  I'll definitely have to check that out.  What level does it blow up at?  Just the beginning of the lower levels in general?

[Jorpho]

Ah, here we are.  I experienced this myself during my playthrough, to be clear – but then, maybe it's just ZSNES or some other wacky emulation issue.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/588771-tales-of-phantasia/faqs/8713

The merchant standing in front of the stairs going down sells useful
stuff you might have forgotten to bring. If you want to and have the
money (most likely) make a whole set of Lemon, Pine and Miracle
Gummies by using Rune Bottles on the Apple, Orange and Mixed Gummies
you can buy here. The transformed items restore 60% of HP/TP instead
of the 30% recovered by the other items, however, do buy a new set of
the original items, you can never be too careful. Don't forget to buy
another 15 Rune Bottles before going down.

This is important, sell your oldest equipment and useless items, then
fill your food sack. The reason for this is that there's a bug in the
game that transforms items randomly into Chicken (a food item) if you
have too many items (I have only experienced this bug here in the
Moria Gallery).

[justin3009]

I'm not sure if this bug exists or not for me.  The item # has been drastically reduced from basically 320 down to 255.  I've gone to the Moria Gallery, made a save before hand, checked all items and nothing changed at all in either quantity or item itself.  So maybe the bug was inherently fixed with the item reduction?

[justin3009]

In light of news about an 8 MB Zsnes handler and now that Cless's translation/localization has come out, I've been working on kick-starting this project again.

There's been significant progress on many things since this topic was last updated, but I honestly don't know what all to list.

But the plan in action right now is converting all my '.txt' change logs into a more compact 'Excel' (Probably not the best thing) spread sheet being organized by what the changes do.  In-Game changes are in their own log, any Main  Menu changes with their sub-categories are in separate pages in a Menu Change log, Battle changes will be organized by Menu/PC/Enemy data.

After, I'll make a back-up and expand the rom to 8 Megs.  Then comes probably trying to re-work the damn palette system once more to accommodate for the new PC/NPC sprite updates.  Soon after I'll have to start re-doing masses amounts of battle code etc etc.. Long ways to go but I have more freedom now without space limitations for the most part.

Edit: STILL moving data into an excel sheet.  I just have two more text files to do so.  I MAY end up re-doing half of this because I think some of it is rather.. outdated.  But in either case, I'm just about done labeling such and then I can get back to reworking some things.  I may try to see if I can get a VWF loading for the PC/Enemy names in battle. (Pretty sure it's possible really.  Just have to change how it loads the text and shove them somewhere in VRAM where tech names won't overwrite).

Edit 2: I'm really thinking of starting from scratch and re-adding things one by one.  I've got a lot of data I don't even know what does what anymore and my notes are rather.. everywhere since it's been so long.  In other news, I modified my Table Code for spell names, usage and what not to load from one area instead of two (They had the same data..)  I also found out HOW spells are used in the menu and how it loads what does what.  I may make ANOTHER table just to dictate which value loads what kind of healing spell so everything is straight up modifiable relatively quickly.

[justin3009]

Just an update:

1. Got Cless's menu back to how it was before I started over and it's better organized.
2. Status menu is back to how it was.
3. Custom menu is back to how it was.
4. Item Menu is back to how it was with much more simplified coding.
5. Magic Menu is back to how it was excluding the table (I need to figure something else out for later)
6. Name screen is back to how it was.
7. Window drawing code is mainly complete.  X/Y coordinates, width and height are all customizable! *NEW*
8. Implemented the routine for the Main Menu screen only.  X/Y coordinates are two bytes loaded now while width/height are only one byte.  The code is slightly longer but it's now more compact in the long run.  Now I have to input new data to tell how many windows to draw and which one to draw next.  Once that's set, the entire routine is ready and all the other code for drawing the menu can be knocked out.
9. Window drawing is now 100% complete!  You can load however many windows you want on screen,  X/Y coordinates of window and width/height.  The only thing that has to be done before hand is loading the single byte to load the correct pointer.  Saves up a huge chunk of room in bank 4B and it's much more dynamic as it only draws what's needed instead of drawing one tile at a time.

I'm basically slowly re-adding everything I had before.  Fixing the code, reorganizing, etc.. Doing some new things on the way if I don't get too lost in my old notes.

But one thing that's been a beneficial addition to the project is this little wonder:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDtwcZVI30Y&feature=youtu.be

Figured out how to import voices into games.  Got bored and even tested it on Sailor Moon: Another Story and it worked flawlessly there too, and with Star Ocean.  So this will GREATLY improve space and allow more customization.

I'm also looking into the game to see if I can possibly add 8 directional pixel movement (AKA Chrono Trigger).  The game seemingly does allow pixel movement as from what I've tested.  The only issue is that you're forced to walk in a 4 directional manner.  I want to break that so you can walk ANYWHERE.  I've also noticed that at 'rounded' edges, the game does have you pixel move around it in an odd circular pattern.  So it definitely does support it.

[justin3009]

Welp, that time again.

1. All PC's have been bumped to Bank 61 for character battle data.  610000 is Mint.  611000 is Arche.  612000 is Chester, etc.. All battle data can be used from any bank now.  I have NOT moved Cless because he's technically hard-coded.  I have a lot of work to do with him yet to even get him as a automated battle person.  Then again, I have to write two separate systems.  One specifically for 'Manual' mode stuff and one specifically for them being AI controlled.  So I'll have to copy the battle data and have them have a base set up like Cless's to work.

2. I'm looking into the Menu Palette issues I had before, rather, palette issues in general.  One palette is repeated twice and both are used for the same thing.  You delete one, it kills the graphics.  It's really strange and I have NO clue why it does this or what's making it do that.  (I have yet to find out where it READS the palette from).

Actually writing this post and checking, I just found out more on how this palette system works.  All I can say is this shit is really weird and annoying.  The same palette is written TWICE in RAM and is loaded through a 0-7(?) spectrum.  The latter numbers are for Layer 3 things like the reflection in the water, mirror, shadow etc.. but it uses the exact same palette as the first one that's stored, just in a separate area (Wtf?).  But otherwise, pretty sure that can be reworked to use the same palette on the Sprite Layer.  Legitimately, I'm completely baffled at this.  But that DOES mean I can actually use a working palette system for this game.  I just have to figure out how it reads/stores the palettes and work from there!

3. Working on Brambert (Brambald/Rambert/Rambard)'s whatever the hell people want to call him, voices.  There's an enemy in Tales of Eternia that had a shit ton of cut out voices and he actually has the tone of voice I want for him.  So with that, got a horde of spells and am using bits and pieces of him and other people to create custom voices.  I won't give any skill set list yet as he's still in progress for ideas.  But I'm aiming to NOT make him a replacement for Chester or Arche, but rather be viable for either or.

4. Once I crack this damn palette system and make it work how I want, I'll start importing the PSX sprites like before and HOPEFULLY things can start getting back on track.  When that happens, I'll start bumping the battle sprite data to new areas and importing the PSX sprites/animations.  I took a test with Cless and he's literally just ONE tile too small to fit.  Though with how this game works, it may load up 3-4 extra tiles and cause VRAM issues.  So I have to do some super extensive testing.

5. Have two new spells for Arche planned out slightly.  One of them is already in-game and used by an enemy, so I decided to see if I can make it a retrievable spell for her.  I haven't done any coding yet but I have the voices ready.  One of them will be a light elemental and the other will be another dark elemental as she's very much lacking in that.

6.  Have a slur of new arte voices for Lilith.  These were done months ago for a fan-game I was attempting to work on but got bored.  So they'll be put to good use here.  She's going to be more of an ass kicker than before if I can get her working and in-game correctly.  May also have a 'secret' variation as well

[ChronoMoogle]

Wew! You are really planning to make the SFC version of Tales of Phantasia superior to the PSX Port, aren't you? Very impressive and exciting stuff!
Are 2 player fights somehow planned or are them beyound the capabilities of the hardware?

[justin3009]

2 player COULD be possible but considering I have no way to have the other PC's be supported by the player (yet), it's a far cry from anything. I really doubt I'll implement that but it could be a possibility in the future.

[Burnt Lasagna]

Voices - Not sure if this will happen.  The original crew's e-mails are.. well non-existant anymore.  So any 'voice' importing is probably not going to happen for now.

Any chance of adding in the GBA voices?
I remember dumping all the voice samples a while back from the European version (it has better audio quality).

Here's a video on Youtube giving the starting addresses for the voices,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP4acSFH2Mo

Ripped via GBA2AIF.

Voices start at offset BF79C in the JP Version and offset BCD0C in the US Version.
(for documentation sake ._.)

I don't quite remember, but I think the European version had the voices in the same location as the US version, if not, then it was definitely not far from that point. 

[justin3009]

I actually did import a test voice for Cless into the SNES version.  Worked nicely and actually almost sounded better on SNES (Though that's probably nostalgia or something).  I was thinking about doing a little version with the GBA English voices.  May just do that later on for fun.

[Burnt Lasagna]

I was thinking about doing a little version with the GBA English voices.  May just do that later on for fun.

Hey, that's cool
I always liked the GBA voice acting. It has that "over the top" charm to it

[Hiei-]

From what I remember, the chicken bug might be from the english translation of dejap, as the first french version (based on the english translation) also had that bug.

[KaOSoFt]

Hey there!

Perhaps I have not read well, but does it say Klarth will have access to all spells? Isn't Klarth just a summoner?

Maybe I'm not reading correctly and I'm just misinterpreting that line.

Thanks in advance, and keep it up!

[justin3009]

Misinterpreted.  He doesn't have access to all spells but I altered a JSR so he COULD use any spell in the game without crashing.  Mainly because I plan to use some of his code for re-doing everyone's junk eventually.

Also, I DO have a couple ideas for a couple 'new summons' for him which I *THINK* could work.  I'm just trying to find someone that knows Tales of Phantasia's storyline well enough and how it works that it won't interfere and screw things over.

Edit: - Friend and I semi got bored early this morning (Around 2:00 AM or something.  Not even sure why we were up so late) and decided to work on Brambald's sprite.  Noticed that in either way of any of his concept arts, the sprite looked nothing like him really and not too mention his armor was made to look like cloth.  And this ends up being the result of changes to him.

[justin3009]

Been a long while since I posted!

- Here's some menu updates.  The Tactics Menu is almost working.  I had to bump every single arrow button/button pressing pointers in general to a new bank to make room for new commands.  There's a 4th command for up/down now in the Tactics Menu.

All arrow movement is fixed in the main menu.  The 'Right' Arrow will now move to PC 1 and automatically shortcut to equip.  You just have to choose which PC.  Pressing 'Left' does nothing.

I stopped for awhile due to issues but most of them are overcome now.  Also fixed a couple more battle freeze bugs with Klarth.  I STILL have to move Cless into the new bank but I'm not sure where his data starts and where it ends animation wise and command wise.  It's proving to be quite an annoyance.

STILL working on the palettes a bit.  Ran into trouble as technically I'm going to try and stick to 4 palettes at most with some creative workarounds.  But.. here's the issue:

Cless
Arche
Chester
Klarth

Those were the 4 palettes used.  But since Brambald/bert came into the picture.. he needs his own which would bump it to 5.  I've been trying to see if I can mesh his palette with Chester's as they do share quite a few colors, but it doesn't look the best sadly.  Once I can fix that issue then I'll start re-working all the NPC's and such to accommodate.

Edit: Tactics Menu is now fully functional for four PC's.  All hand X/Y coordinates work, all buttons are in check, no more crashing or freezes now.  All Tactics areas in RAM change as well.

[DarknessSavior]

Nice work. This is looking like it's going to be quite impressive.

Might I suggest "Use Ranged Attacks" instead of "Attack in Ranged"?

~DS

[justin3009]

Attack In Range is more of a command to attack the enemy that's closest to you instead of whichever target they're locked on, or so I think anyway.

Reason why it's not 'Use Ranged Attacks' is for that precise reason and would get pretty awkward with Cless.

[DarknessSavior]

Attack In Range is more of a command to attack the enemy that's closest to you instead of whichever target they're locked on, or so I think anyway.

Reason why it's not 'Use Ranged Attacks' is for that precise reason and would get pretty awkward with Cless.

Oh, I totally saw a "d" there that wasn't there. "In range" makes sense. Sorry. T_T

~DS

[Bregalad]

The menu looks better than the original I think. For some reason I think it looks cooler to have all 4 characters lined up rather than in a 2x2 gird.

[TheZunar123]

Never played this game before, but it definitely looks cool, so I might give it a try. Which version of the game do you guys recommend, SNES or GBA?

(Not to derail the thread, I'm just wondering)

Ontopic: Menu looks really cool, though I've never played the game before so I'm just going off the screenshot in the first post.