[Rodimus Primal]

Version 1.88 has been submitted.

This fixes the leftover changes of SandRuby now say Sand Pearl as they should.

I've also added the Critical Hit Bugfix as well. Thanks to chillyfeez and Grimoire for finding this and making the fix. 

[Special]

8.bit too, without him the ball would have never gotten rolling in the first place and this fix wouldn't exist.

[Rodimus Primal]

8.bit too, without him the ball would have never gotten rolling in the first place and this fix wouldn't exist.

Of course. Thanks to everyone involved. I'm glad the community can be helpful to one another!


Version 1.88 is up and ready for download!

[Chicken Knife]

@Rodimus

I started up a game today on version 1.88 looking forward to experiencing how it feels to finally have critical hits working properly. I noticed an issue that I didn't notice on a previous version of your hack (I believe 1.84). During the battle with the Mist Dragon, for some reason the main melody channel of the music was cutting in and out throughout the fight. The other channels were fine. As the song would repeatedly cycle through its loop, I believe that the same parts were skipped over on every time. I've played through this game about 30 times so there is no doubt in my mind that sections are missing. Strange issue to come up. I'm curious what could be causing it.

[Rodimus Primal]

@Rodimus

I started up a game today on version 1.88 looking forward to experiencing how it feels to finally have critical hits working properly. I noticed an issue that I didn't notice on a previous version of your hack (I believe 1.84). During the battle with the Mist Dragon, for some reason the main melody channel of the music was cutting in and out throughout the fight. The other channels were fine. As the song would repeatedly cycle through its loop, I believe that the same parts were skipped over on every time. I've played through this game about 30 times so there is no doubt in my mind that sections are missing. Strange issue to come up. I'm curious what could be causing it.

That sounds really strange. I just tried it myself against the Mist Dragon and didn't notice anything missing. I saved right before so I could test it. Think you can PM me your ROM so I can see if there's anything different that could be causing it? Also, what emulator are you using?

[Chicken Knife]

After doing some testing and finding that other versions of the FF4 rom were testing positive for the issue--and then getting the same result on youtube vids of the midi, I finally thought to check if both my speakers were working and sure enough, the left one had died. Sorry for the false bug alarm! I'm surprised that none of the other tracks were noticeably different without the left channel.

** Update

Btw, after having just finished writing the script for one of my Dragon Quest hacks, my brain is still very much in script editing mode as I play this. Let me know if you would happen to be interested in me compiling notes on the instances of grammer or phrasings that I would handle differently. We all have our own writing style and I wouldn't expect you to use all my suggestions but you may find a few you would agree with.

[Rodimus Primal]

After doing some testing and finding that other versions of the FF4 rom were testing positive for the issue--and then getting the same result on youtube vids of the midi, I finally thought to check if both my speakers were working and sure enough, the left one had died. Sorry for the false bug alarm! I'm surprised that none of the other tracks were noticeably different without the left channel.

** Update

Btw, after having just finished writing the script for one of my Dragon Quest hacks, my brain is still very much in script editing mode as I play this. Let me know if you would happen to be interested in me compiling notes on the instances of grammer or phrasings that I would handle differently. We all have our own writing style and I wouldn't expect you to use all my suggestions but you may find a few you would agree with.

Glad you were able to find the root of the problem. I moved a couple of months ago and my speakers were damaged in the move and I had to replace them.

If you're up to it, put any notes in a Notepad or Word Document I can look over. One of the things we have to take into consideration is space in the ROM but another set of eyes always helps.

[Chicken Knife]

Sounds good! Just so I understand your process, you are using an insert routine where individual lines can be longer but the overall length has to remain the same or less, right?

EDIT**

December 26, 2018, 11:34:40 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

As I level up Rydia I notice that the symbol to the left of black magic names that appear upon leveling up appears weird. As you can see, the border of the circle is shiny and odd looking as opposed to being black like it should be. The white magic learned messages have the normal symbol. If I go into the menus,  both in and out of battle the black magic symbol appears correctly--black border, grey inside with a white cross. If you zoom in on this image, the border of the circle is the problem. It has a bunch of colors. I think you accidentally have an invisible color selected for the border that is reflecting the white and light blue sky in the background as well as the desert tiles.

[Rodimus Primal]

Sounds good! Just so I understand your process, you are using an insert routine where individual lines can be longer but the overall length has to remain the same or less, right?

EDIT**

December 26, 2018, 11:34:40 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

As I level up Rydia I notice that the symbol to the left of black magic names that appear upon leveling up appears weird. As you can see, the border of the circle is shiny and odd looking as opposed to being black like it should be. The white magic learned messages have the normal symbol. If I go into the menus,  both in and out of battle the black magic symbol appears correctly--black border, grey inside with a white cross. If you zoom in on this image, the border of the circle is the problem. It has a bunch of colors. I think you accidentally have an invisible color selected for the border that is reflecting the white and light blue sky in the background as well as the desert tiles.

That's a known issue with the symbols used for spell names. It is like that even in the original Final Fantasy II ROM. I just tested to be sure, and learning Lit-1 has the same problem with the symbol.

As for insertion, I've been using FF4kster.

[vivify93]

The problem is that "black" is actually "invisible" in the game due to how the color math works; it's the same in FFV, but it's not noticeable since you never see item icons except in menus. All SNES versions of the game have this issue.

[Chicken Knife]

Ah, I'm surprised no one has fixed that yet. I can't imagine it being more than a palette issue. I see that the symbols for equipment have the same problem when you are opening treasure chests and such. Whatever they thought they were using for black.... wasn't exactly black. I even took a minute to download a SNES palette editor but after realizing the process for SNES is nothing like NES, I gave up on that pretty quickly and returned to my script notes...

For FF4kster, it doesn't restrict you line by line right? It's only a total space restriction?
December 26, 2018, 07:05:58 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

The problem is that "black" is actually "invisible" in the game due to how the color math works; it's the same in FFV, but it's not noticeable since you never see item icons except in menus. All SNES versions of the game have this issue.

You don't think it's possible for the invisible color to be changed to black? Would that screw up other elements of the game?

[chillyfeez]

The font (which includes all symbols incorporated therein) is encoded in 2BPP, which for the sake of this discussion means that only four colors, including "invisible," are possible. The game uses all three colors: color #1 is the primary font color, white in most situations; color #2 is the color of the window, blue by default, the negative space for all font characters; color #3 is (usually) gray, used as an accent color in weapon, magic, etc. symbols. So black is not an option, hence "invisible" is used where black is needed. In most cases it appears as black because it's in front of a black background, but when it appears in battle or in dialogue, it takes on the color of whatever is behind the text box. "Fixing" this would be a considerable undertaking, or maybe even impossible given the way the SNES PPU works.

[Chicken Knife]

The font (which includes all symbols incorporated therein) is encoded in 2BPP, which for the sake of this discussion means that only four colors, including "invisible," are possible. The game uses all three colors: color #1 is the primary font color, white in most situations; color #2 is the color of the window, blue by default, the negative space for all font characters; color #3 is (usually) gray, used as an accent color in weapon, magic, etc. symbols. So black is not an option, hence "invisible" is used where black is needed. In most cases it appears as black because it's in front of a black background, but when it appears in battle or in dialogue, it takes on the color of whatever is behind the text box. "Fixing" this would be a considerable undertaking, or maybe even impossible given the way the SNES PPU works.

@chillyfeez

Thank you for your detailed explanation!

As I look at FFV and FFVI, it appears their symbols are encoded with the same color restrictions. I think later games just did a better job preventing you from seeing the symbols outside of the main menu.

As I think through the details of your explanation, the window color you obviously need for negative space, but I can't think of the game putting the invisible color to much use outside of that scrolling intro text when you leave Baron Castle. I'm sure there are other uses I'm not immediately thinking of, including the ending sequence. If there is no technical solution other than something as arduous as expanding the font data and finding the space for it, maybe it would be best to take a que from the later FF games and limit the visibility of those symbols?

[Rodimus Primal]

Ah, I'm surprised no one has fixed that yet. I can't imagine it being more than a palette issue. I see that the symbols for equipment have the same problem when you are opening treasure chests and such. Whatever they thought they were using for black.... wasn't exactly black. I even took a minute to download a SNES palette editor but after realizing the process for SNES is nothing like NES, I gave up on that pretty quickly and returned to my script notes...

For FF4kster, it doesn't restrict you line by line right? It's only a total space restriction?
December 26, 2018, 07:05:58 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)You don't think it's possible for the invisible color to be changed to black? Would that screw up other elements of the game?

FF4kster limits you by total space per Bank. There are 3 text banks for dialogue in the game and space is limited overall. 

[Chicken Knife]

FF4kster limits you by total space per Bank. There are 3 text banks for dialogue in the game and space is limited overall.

Sounds good! I'm up to Mount Ordeals. While my suggested tweaks are numerous, 90 percent are same length or shorter.
December 27, 2018, 09:29:34 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Something seems to have gotten screwed up with a text pointer after Cagnazzo

[Rodimus Primal]

Sounds good! I'm up to Mount Ordeals. While my suggested tweaks are numerous, 90 percent are same length or shorter.
December 27, 2018, 09:29:34 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Something seems to have gotten screwed up with a text pointer after Cagnazzo

That's strange. Was there anything said right before that Text box?

[Chicken Knife]

If I remember correctly, it was somewhere after Cagnazzo's lines ending in "why don't you join me in hell?"

I don't remember if it was in the middle of Palom & Porom's lines or preceding them. It looks like in the middle based on the sprite positioning.

[Rodimus Primal]

If I remember correctly, it was somewhere after Cagnazzo's lines ending in "why don't you join me in hell?"

I don't remember if it was in the middle of Palom & Porom's lines or preceding them. It looks like in the middle based on the sprite positioning.

I honestly don't know what would cause that on yours. I just tested myself at the same spot and I didn't get any blank text boxes. Could it be a bad ROM was patched or something else?

[Chicken Knife]

Ok. I just completed the game, as well as my lengthy list of proposed script edits. I hope you agree that many of these would serve to improve the script overall. I'm happy to discuss anything in here if you're not clear on where I'm coming from. Enjoy

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wde27wy07ngvdms/FFIV%20Proposed%20Revisions.txt?dl=0

[Rodimus Primal]

Ok. I just completed the game, as well as my lengthy list of proposed script edits. I hope you agree that many of these would serve to improve the script overall. I'm happy to discuss anything in here if you're not clear on where I'm coming from. Enjoy

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wde27wy07ngvdms/FFIV%20Proposed%20Revisions.txt?dl=0

I'll have to further look it over, but some of these look good and others I may keep the same. Space could be an issue in some of the banks so I hope that I can make them work. I like the rephrasing you've done in places though.