Tales of Phantasia SNES (Enhancement) (Slow WIP)

[ChronoMoogle]

I have to say it again, this project is absolutely sweet!
I played the GBA version of ToP pretty far until the unbalanced dungeons bugged me too much and I went on to another game. But its hard to deny the quality of this game, so I recently also bought the sfc version because I like the graphics better...
I really hope to play your hack in the future, it might get the definite ToP version at some point.

[Gemini]

Your revision of the status menu looks absolutely sweet. Still planning to have a vwf for the 8x8 strings? That would free you from the "CHICAGO PLAGUE" and make it all just perfect.

[justin3009]

I was able to borrow the VWF from the 'Skill names' as a test for VWF.  Only issue was I wasn't able to actually bump the other bits in VRAM, rather, not sure how quite yet.  I'm not sure how slow it'd be either.  I'll have to experiment with it more later on.  Though if it becomes successful with very little to no slow down, there's going to be A LOT of blank space on the screen.

Edit: Updated first post of page.

[TheZunar123]

I have a quick question. Is there any reason you're using directly translated names instead of the localized names (Cless vs Cress, Klarth vs Claus, etc.)?

[Neil]

If it's up for debate I vote for Kralth. (Snark. The localized names read horrible to me.)

[Zoel]

It debatable, but I find the localized names are terrible.

[cobaltex]

It debatable, but I find the localized names are terrible.

This. They're very awkward to read.

[justin3009]

I very, very much dislike the localized names.  If anything, you're freely able to rename your characters in the SNES original.  So if someone really wanted the localized names, just rename them.

That's an argument I'm not really going to bother with though.  Their non-localized names will remain.

[TheZunar123]

I'm in no way against the non-localized names. In fact, I like them more than the localized ones. I was just curious.

[StorMyu]

French Gba version used Cless / Klarth.
that's just better ^^

[SBK]

This is AWESOME! I beat Tales of Phantasia on the SNES a few weeks ago. Also beat Tales of Destiny on the PSX a few days ago. So far in the series I think ToP is the best. I'm playing Tales of Destiny II aka Tales of Eternia right now on the PSX. I had to turn off the voice events... boy did Namco do a great job on that

[justin3009]

Just an update while I was able to with other projects and things I'm attempting to help with.

7FCC20 was where in the main menu item palettes were stored.  I noticed that, 7FCC00, was where the button palettes were stored.  IE: A/B/X/Y in Custom Menu.  I also noticed that the palette gets rewritten there as soon as you leave the item menu.

In doing so, moved Item Palettes to be stored at 7FCC00 and now that leaves another RAM palette area in the menu unused.  I'm trying to shuffle room around to make room for four PC palettes + Stoned/Poisoned palette.

Right now I have:

7FCC20
7FCC60
7FCC80 as open areas.  Along with 7FCD00 but that's a bit.. out of sequence.

So what I'm thinking is bumping the 'Element Icons' palette to 7FCC20.  Then bumping PC Stoned/Poisoned up to 7FCCE0 and 7FCD00.  So that leaves:

7FCC40 - PC 1
7FCC60 - PC 2
7FCC80 - PC 3 (Only used in Status Menu as Portraits which can easily be bumped into 7FCC00 again)
7FCCA0 - PC 4

This would solve the palette in RAM issue.  Then the issue is having the entire palette check to check for each PC's area.  Get that and I have the menu ready for everyone's palettes!

Edit: Working on Brambald/Chester/Klarth's palettes before hand.  I MAY actually be able to fit those three into one palette with just some editing.  They look pretty close to their PSX counterparts still (Except Chester.  Actually had to modify his sprite because the colors were REALLY off compared to his actual art.  But doing so actually saved room for colors!)

I THINK I may have just enough room for all three of them.  Brambald's hair is slightly darker now which actually works nicely.  So hopefully I can finalize that palette and then start importing them.

Edit 2: Routine is done!  I just modified one thing and apparently it's globally fixed across the entire menu.  Quite convenient actually.  Klarth/Chester have their palettes set.  Mint/Cless as well.  Everyone else is default set to Cless/Mint for the time being until I get more sprites ready and Arche's palette imported.

[Terr]

Working on Brambald/Chester/Klarth's palettes before hand.  I MAY actually be able to fit those three into one palette with just some editing.  They look pretty close to their PSX counterparts still (Except Chester.  Actually had to modify his sprite because the colors were REALLY off compared to his actual art.  But doing so actually saved room for colors!)

As for sprites reference, did you check Tales of 15th Anniversary テイルズ オブ 大全 1995-2011, because there is many detailed art. I don't own this book but I found once a couple of good scans on the net, so I think it's really worth the check.

And here is link for Brambald and Co. images, I hope it'll come in handy, somehow.

[justin3009]

 Yep,  got the art from the scans and such.

As for Brambald's design, we used the anime for reference since he was armored.  Felt more appropriate.

Edit: All PSX Chester sprites are imported with his palette.  Every single sprite has been altered to fit into the color scheme and fit the OFFICIAL art more appropriately. NOTE: THIS IS BEFORE MOVING ALL PC GRAPHICS TO NEW LOCATION SO THEY CAN LEAD!

[KmJ]

Really good project, can't wait to play this.
Do you plan to add Suzu along with Brambald?

[justin3009]

 Suzu I don't plan  to add.

[Zynk]

Just throwing some characters here. 
How about Londrine? OR Change Klarth to Fulein?

[justin3009]

I'd love to throw Londrine in if it wasn't for her huge amount of fan service and destroying the plot more-so than what it is.  I have Brambald coming in as a PC and I have a couple other things planned that I don't think people would expect.  So hopefully once I get around to editing more of the in-game junk, I'll be able to release some info.

- Finally found the Difficulty bit.  Had to set all my controls to be one button to trace the damn thing.  But voila, now an option!

[ChronoMoogle]

Is there something like a cheat to activate it? 

[justin3009]

Yep, in the original there was.

You had to press ABXY at the same time when hitting 'NEW GAME' to activate it.  If successful, you'd hear everyone shout their whole YATTA victory phrase.

The ONLY thing about Hard mode is that it literally DOUBLES the enemy power.  I plan to remedy that sooner or later so they gain about half + their original power with possibly double HP or half+ their original HP as well.