Help me finish up FFIV?

[DarknessSavior]

Heya guys. Long time no see.

I ran into Myria (of RPGe/FFV fame) in a stream today, and it reminded me of the fact that I still haven't finished the FFIV project I started many years ago.

Most of the hacking is actually finished and works quite well. I've played through roughly 1/4 of the game and haven't seen any issues in most of it.

But there's still a bit of work that needs doing (the battle text, for instance). And for whatever reason, I'm having trouble inserting translated scripts. Some pointers work just fine. Some pointers point somewhere entirely different (a lot of them pointing to the scrolling text shortly after leaving Baron Castle. Dunno why). If nothing else, I would like to get this fixed so I can at least finish the translation and then release it (it would technically be 100% playable and would still be miles ahead of the original release, or the other re-translation).

If anyone is willing to help, please contact me at DarknessSavior@gmail.com. I very rarely check RHDN, so I'm more likely to see messages there.

Thanks.

~DS

[Rodimus Primal]

Well for starters, there is FF4Hackster as a utility that lets you edit certain things, although I don't know what version of FF4 you are using. Also there is Project II, vivify93's hack that attempts to restore much of what was lost and used FF4hackster to do some of the work.

Not sure what your hack is, but if it includes a B Button dash, I say go for it.

[DarknessSavior]

Well, specifically it's for FFIV Easytype. But I planned on making separate hacks for the original version as well.

It's basically a re-translation as well. But I implemented lots of hacks to make things a lot cleaner on the SNES. Mostly rearranging menus and whatnot to allow for longer strings to be displayed cleanly on screen. Like item/spell names, the main menu, item menu, textboxes that pop up when you enter a town, etc.

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1529/

There's a few screenshots there to show off things I had finished.

~DS

[yugisokubodai]

Some pointers point somewhere entirely different (a lot of them pointing to the scrolling text shortly after leaving Baron Castle. Dunno why).

The original FF4 uses 16 bit pointers. Did you convert it to 32 bit? If not, this is the problem with Japanese version. Correct me if I'm wrong, FF4 is a LoRom, so the pointer can only point from 8000 to 8800?
I myself suffered the same thing. The first pointers work well, but the last one that points out of 8800 does not work.

[DarknessSavior]

The original FF4 uses 16 bit pointers. Did you convert it to 32 bit? If not, this is the problem with Japanese version. Correct me if I'm wrong, FF4 is a LoRom, so the pointer can only point from 8000 to 8800?
I myself suffered the same thing. The first pointers work well, but the last one that points out of 8800 does not work.

I checked the scripts and the pointers are still 16-bit. I did, however, expand the ROM, but not enough to change the ROM type.

~DS

[chillyfeez]

You should try using FF4kster. It makes dialogue editing easy by changing the pointers automatically. I haven't toyed around much with Japanese versions of the game, but in the two US versions the dialogue banks are all in the same place in ROM, so FF4kster will work just fine regardless. It has the potential to break your battle system, though, if you're using a version it's not fully compatible with.
Backup your ROM and give it a shot.

If it screws up the battle system, the fix I've used is as follows:
1) Make two copies of the ROM. Rename them Copy1 and Copy2.
2) Open Copy1 in your hex editor. Jump to $01/8000 (or $01/8200 if the ROM has a header)
3) overwrite the entire section from $01/8000 to $01/FFFF (or $01/8200 - $02/01FF if the ROM has a header) with FFs. The entirety of the battle system, at least as much as FF4kster will edit, exists in these 0x8000 bytes
4) Create a patch, using (the now messed-up) Copy1 as the "original," and (the untouched) Copy2 as the "edited" version of the ROM.
You now have a patch that will fix your battle system! So now you can edit whatever you need to in FF4kster, and just apply this patch when you're done.
*Note that, in my experience, the only differences between the two US versions of the game exist in this block of code, but I have no experience hacking any Japanese version... So your experience may vary. 

[DarknessSavior]

I don't think it would work, as I've moved the dialogue banks in my hack. Is it able to keep track of that sort of thing?

~DS

[chillyfeez]

Oh, no, absolutely not.
I don't know of any tool outside of a hex editor that you could use, then.
I can't say I envy you for the task of trying to figure that out, but as long as there are still three dialogue banks and they all work the same way, then I can't imagine it will be difficult, just time consuming.

[Spooniest]

You may have to wait until Slick Productions is back up before you get much in the way of information about FF4kster. Pink Puff over there is the developer of said Utility (unless I'm remembering wrong).

The last time I checked, FF4kster was not compatible with any of the Japanese versions, of which Easy Type is one. But this was quite some time ago.

(Checks documentation)

Oh, never mind, the description lays it all out. It's only compatible with v1.1. of FF2US. And it is Pinkpuff, with the same SN here at RHDN.

So howzabout that B button dash? I tried to start making a patch for it once, but didn't get very far. The speed at which characters move under player control seems somehow linked with the speed they move during cutscenes, and they end up walking twice as far as they should, screwing up the scene.  It was weird to watch, and I was using patch codes (which I imagine is a very primitive way of trying to locate what code in the game is responsible for movement speed). I didn't get any further than that.

[chillyfeez]

So howzabout that B button dash? I tried to start making a patch for it once, but didn't get very far. The speed at which characters move under player control seems somehow linked with the speed they move during cutscenes, and they end up walking twice as far as they should, screwing up the scene.  It was weird to watch, and I was using patch codes (which I imagine is a very primitive way of trying to locate what code in the game is responsible for movement speed). I didn't get any further than that.

I didn't want to say anything until my submission was approved, but I wrote a patch a few months ago called FFIV User Options that includes a run function. It's a toggle, not a "hold the button," and it's the L button, not B. The other options are the ability to show an ATB meter in battle, and the ability to defer a turn in battle with X. It can only be patched to FFIIUS version 1.1, but nothing else was changed so as to patch cleanly into most other hacks of that ROM.
Check it out, if you want.

[Rodimus Primal]

Just tested that out chillyfeez. Works okay, but it doesn't patch cleanly with Project II. Seems to cause a title screen error. It works with vanilla FFIIUS 1.1 headered, though. The L button toggle is odd too. It doesn't seem to turn off and I had to press L a couple of times before it turned on. The X deferrment works well.

Sorry to hijack your thread DarknessSavior.

[chillyfeez]

Out of respect for DarknessSavior's topic, I created a new thread for further discussion of about my hack.