Final Fantasy Reconstructed

[Duke2go]

Hunh! Extra areas, that's pretty sweet!

Thanks. In total there is 1 additional area that Grond made within the original bugfix rebalance hack that I started from, I added a completely new town, a new cave, and my own bonus dungeon that's only accessible after all of the crystals shine again. I've got a little less than 1,000 kb left and I'm trying to add as many little extra touches as I can, without making the game seem cluttered or over the top. I wanted to create something that stayed true to the original Final Fantasy game but was more visually similar to an SNES Final Fantasy. It has definitely been a process of trial and error to get it right though. Will try to upload some new screens soon and an updated beta patch is about to be released to fix some things that I had noticed during my own playthru's. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

[Duke2go]

Haven't posted in a bit, but beta testing is proceeding wonderfully. Feedback has been somewhat sparse, but it has been helpful. I'm posting some of a Q&A I had with one of my testers. It was posted at JCE3000GT's message board too, so if anyone is having deja vu that's why haha. Hope this gives some more of an idea of what the altered game is like and what kind of work went into the project. I threw in some screenshots also to put context to some of the comments also. I welcome any comments anyone else would like to make in addition.

- There's an npc in Bikke's hideout who talks about a spooky castle in the Northwest. This is also said by somebody in Elfland (which does make sense).

- Right now there are only so many NPCs within the world. I have a few of them doubled up in certain spots right now in order to basically just use them as either stand-ins or as basically repurposed NPCs. The woman in Bikke's cave was supposed to be like a lady bartender, and I tried to have the bartenders in the game give advice to the player or tell them about the world. I will probably alter that before the final version 1.0 is released, but I haven't addressed it yet.

-  Level 1/2 magic is weak.

- I haven't messed with the spells really and they should be set around the original specs from Final Fantasy I. I was considering tinkering with the magic system and the spells, but I had decided to leave that part alone for the moment. Were you saying that I should make those spells stronger by the way? I can certainly do that, just don't want to unbalance the game again

- Enemies in the Temple of Fiends hit kinda hard.

- I've found in my own playthroughs that I need to get to about level 4 or 5 to get up to the level of fighting Garland. I tried to balance the game so that if the player found themselves in a situation where combat was getting tough, that was an indication to maybe gain a level or two and then try again. I was trying to take away some of the "grind heavy" aspects of the original game but not make the game a complete cakewalk too.

- The Power Staff is in all ways weaker than the Iron Staff, so its only use it being sold I guess?

- The Power Staff was kind of an afterthought and I don't think that I changed that yet. I meant to make it a little stronger so that the mages would have something stronger earlier in the game, but I don't think that I ever did.

- There's an NPC in the Elfland castle that says the treasure is locked with the Mystic Key. But there is no door to unlock? There is a treasure room, but all three are empty.

- The NPC in Elfland is a leftover actually. She was meant to stand there originally when there was actually a door on the Elfland treasury that was locked by the Mystic key. Since I took out almost all of the actual "doors" in the game, I just never gave her new dialogue. I will be correcting that in the future. Since Astos was supposed to have "raided the treasury" that was why all the chests say that they are empty. I moved the chests that were originally there to  the Coneria treasury instead.

- I can see that the spells are the same as the original. Now in my and many others opinion, magic is unbalanced in FF1: the best parties consist of multiple fighters and usually no black or white mages. Most hacks that take the liberty to change such things heavily buff casting. But it's up to you what you want to make of the game!
- I agree with you that the spells in the original game were horrendously unbalanced, especially the level 1 versions. Since the original FF1 didn't have the option to use spells as target 1 or target all, I didn't mess with much of the magic. I think you've got a great idea to make the offensive spells target all and I might implement that before the final patch is put out. If I'm able to do it, I'd ideally like to actually code all spells to be either target 1 or target all when I do my ASM editing of the disassembly. I'd also maybe like to change some of the spells to either reflect the magic in the later NES and SNES games, or at least make them useful.

- I like how the Thief gets 4 attack rating per level. On the other hand, he can't equip good weapons the first half of the game, which still bugs me, hah! I myself would let him use the flame sword.
- Glad you liked what I did to the Thief. He was always my favorite character, but in the original game I felt like he was useless compared to the Fighter/Monk/Red Mage, so I expanded the weapons and armor that he could use and made him second in strength to the Fighter. I think eventually I'm going to swap the level up aspects for the Red Mage and the Thief (other than MP/intelligence growth). I did give him the opportunity to equip more things than he could in the original game, but I wanted to keep a tradeoff between speed and power so that he wasn't just a "blue haired fighter". The chain mail does remain a better defensive option for the Thief than almost any of the bracelets he would normally have access to (at least until the silver IIRC), but that's even kind of unbalanced because it is so cheap. I did make some of the later game equipment available to the pre-class change characters for players who liked going through the game without using the class change.

- Again another opinion, but the heal staff casting Heal 2 is kinda OP. I find myself using it every round and just strolling through dungeons.
- I agree that the heal staff casting Heal 2 is kind of OP. I had changed that for my own benefit when I was testing and never changed it back. I also didn't know how other people would react to the monster difficulty, and I know the enemies need to be rebalanced, so I left it like it was in case the game was too hard. I did upgrade the amount of HP restored from the healing spells (i.e. heal and cure spells) to offset the fact that you can't use phoenix downs in the game, and life spells don't work in battle. If I can do it, I will also be fixing that in the ASM edited version so that the players have access to Phoenix downs and life spells can be used in battle, but I don't know if I'll be able to as of now.

- Bug: when looking at the b-select map, there's no cursor for current location, instead flashing rivers.
- The bug on the b-select map is something that I just found myself a little while back. I actually don't know why the rivers glow like they do (other than I probably replaced tiles which were towns at first with those river tiles). Disch told me that the mini-map wouldn't look right unless I manually coded it into the game, I believe he said using the hex editor but it has been quite awhile, so until I have a chance to figure that part out the mini-map isn't going to look correct. I was really just thinking of fixing that when I did the ASM programming.

- Opinion: Maybe it's because I grew up with CGA monitors, but the colors of Crescent Lake really bug me. On the other hand, it makes the place more unique.


- I killed the Blue Dragon in one round. Quite a let down!


- The Blue Dragon probably should be given some more HP or something. Another illustration of how some enemies aren't strong enough while others are too powerful. I was really thinking of taking every enemy and increasing their HP by 25%. Compared to all of the later FF games, 1's enemies have the lowest HP totals of all from what I've seen when I've been researching.

- Love the graphics, but the Air Temple is extra fantastic!

Mirage Tower


Air Temple


- Glad you liked the upgraded graphics. I really tried to make everything look like a later-gen NES game instead of the very simplistic look of the original game. That was why I tried to make every wall at least 2 tiles tall, to add some scale that didn't exist in the original game. I'll post some pics eventually of what the original hack's graphics looked like when I was originally inspired to go this far in my own graphic updating. I was originally trying to replicate the look of the Tower of Babil from IV, but have kind of strayed away from that as I've gone on. I actually just added some new tiles there that I took from a Famicom game (I forget the name right offhand) that will be reflected in the next update.
{The game in question was actually Metal Max which has a wonderful amount of sprites to choose from for anyone looking for rpg interior tiles}

- I kind of feel like the Monk / Master graphics should be switched.



(These are some examples of Black Belt and Master as they are now. * are current color choices)

- You've given me the first feedback about the Monk/Master. I actually made the Master look like he did for 2 reasons. First, I honestly wanted to make Ryu from SFII Champion edition because I always felt he looked like me, and I always loved that color scheme. Second, I figured that a "monk" in training would have a bald head, but he would be able to dress and grow his hair like he wanted after he was awarded the title "master", which was why the pre-class change monk looks like Yang from IV and the post-class change looked like Ryu. There are also a lot of blue/brown/tan player characters post-class change, so I might alter him later.


My own comments:
With the Temple of Fiends and the enemy difficulty, there are a few reasons why this probably happened. First, I basically built the game around my own play style (because I don't honestly know how other people play the game, so I made things work the best way for me". Second, I accidentally unbalanced the enemy formations earlier in the game and haven't had a chance to switch things back yet. I was trying to find a balance with enemies being a little stronger, but giving the player more gp/exp earlier on in the game to make grinding less of an issue. I didn't realize that I had unbalanced the Temple that much though. I will take a look at the formations and see if I can edit them to make it a little more balanced.

I honestly don't like the idea of being able to beat Garland at level 2 (although I was also able to in the original game). I always felt that if I went to the Temple of Fiends at level 3 I was more prepared to get to the pirates/pravoka etc, so I tried to basically force the player to get to level 3 or 4 before moving on. This was mostly because in the original game you can just jump from Garland all the way to Elfland without gaining any levels for real, but then you end up having to grind around Elfland to be able to use level 3 spells (the first time you can "target all"), and to be able to make it through the Marsh Cave and beat Astos. I was stuck with the choices to either make the enemies stronger earlier in the game or make that part easier, leaving the player at a disadvantage when trying to beat the Earth cave, Gurgu volcano, Ice cave unless they grind then.

I would like to balance it so the game plays like IV in that the player basically gains the necessary levels as they progress towards the next area without excessively grinding out levels, but haven't quite gotten it down correctly yet. When I added the "pirate's cave" level I figured the players would gain a level or 2 traveling to and from Pravoka to there, so it would reduce the grinding when you get to Elfland.

So that was the extent of the first Q&As about the game. I hope everyone learned a little more about the project and I welcome any additional input from the forum. 

[A.D.R.I.A.N]

Glad you're back.
Anyway, do you think you can add auto-target? It'll be so cool to see it in your hack.

[Duke2go]

Right now I'm focused on getting the graphics the way that I want them and one of the project's supporters is working to basically reverse engineer a working version of the ATB system. What he's found so far is pretty impressive, and he frequents these boards too, so here's a shoutout to Edward for all his efforts and hard work 

[A.D.R.I.A.N]

Thanks for letting me know. I hope you can finish this 

[Midna]

I kinda figured the Master was supposed to look like Ryu. But I do think it'd make more sense if the designs for the Black Belt and Master were switched,  just because the design you have for the Black Belt looks more... serious, I guess.

[STARWIN]

@ Master / BB, I agree with Midna to some extent. BB looks older and disciplined while Master looks like a fresh punk with a lack of discipline.

@ Crescent Lake colors, something feels a bit off, perhaps it is having cyan/pink/dark as 3 colors in the buildings, as the pink is exactly the same in some walls and some roofs.. pink wood pile and bridge stand out a bit as well, but the rest is just fine as-is. i guess you might be able to improve it if you play with it a bit, as you are going for something radical to begin with.

[Midna]

Maybe if you changed the eyes on the Master's sprite, it would look better. Right now he uses the kind of droopy eyes that are otherwise only used for Onion Knights, female characters, and children, and it makes him look like a little kid dressed up as Ryu instead of a tough-as-nails martial artist, like he should.

[Duke2go]

<Deleted by author>

[Duke2go]

Greetings all. I hadn't posted in awhile, so I thought I would share some more updates. First and foremost, the graphics alterations are getting into a "nit pick" phase, meaning I'm happy, but certain things can still use some changing IMO. Second, I've officially decided to have an "open beta" for anyone who wants to try the game before I put out the official v. 1.0 patch here and on 3000Gt's wonderful site. Third, I'm actually taking a basic program development class right now, so I hopefully will learn enough to do the small ASM changes that I want to include. Disch if you're still paying attention to this thread, your initial tutoring did pay off since I understood up to about week 3 in the class (and learned a few things that I needed to know from what you told me). Cheers though mate for the initial understanding 


The game is really starting to look like I wanted it to, which is basically Final Fantasy 3.5. Going through the game it is definitely on par IMO with its later SNES counterparts, but it still has that classic 8-bit Final Fantasy at its core. I've found myself in the later stages of the project just going into different areas and having to remember that I made those changes, because the locations look like I always envisioned them in my 8-10 year old brain back in the day. This has really been a labor of love, so I look forward to hearing what people think of the game to see if you all like it, which is all I really want now, for other people to rekindle their love of the original Final Fantasy series. 

[ArkthePieKing]

Ahoy! This is looking really awesome so far. I want to chime in and quickly say that I think the graphics and colors for Crescent Lake are gorgeous. I love the palette you chose. One thing I don't, however, really care for is your choice in sprite for Red Wizard. It totally stops being red altogether, and I think it loses a lot of it's personality. Red Mage/Wizard has always sort of been a swashbuckling esque mage, stylish and effective, but when it looks like Tellah it loses that. Bare in mind I'm totally biased about this. I actually have an FF1 Red mage tattoo on my back! It's my favorite class in the series.

As far as mechanics go, understand I haven't played this at all yet, but some general ideas. If you want your players to gain experience as they go along without needing to grind, the best way I've found to do that is honestly to just increase exp values from monsters. More than you'd expect. A perfect example of this is Breath of Fire II. The original had a fair amount of grinding in it, and the GBA version just literally doubled the exp gain and it was almost a perfect curve from that point on, reason being is that double exp =/= double level gains. It just allows them to get to the next set of monsters a little faster. Just some food for thought!

[resq]

I would be more than happy to test it out and give some feedback if that's what you're looking for. I might not have time to play this all the way through but I'll certainly give my honest opinion about the parts I do see. I don't use Facebook so just send me a PM on here if you like.

I'm pretty familiar with the Final Fantasy 1 game and hacks (I've played many of the finished hacks on here - Epica, FF++ , etc.) so I know a bit about how the game plays and the various aspects of the vanilla game. I like to try playing with non-standard party loadouts so maybe I'll be able to give a unique perspective . .

[Retrolife]

A good idea nes is life

[Duke2go]

Ok. So the time of the "open beta" has finally arrived. Hopefully this link works:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fx708bjy8z0bqp/Final%20Fantasy%20Reconstructed%20Beta%20%5BU%5D.ips?dl=0

Anyway, had a few things come up  , and also wanted to make a few more improvements before I opened up the beta process for everyone to enjoy. This is still the "proof of concept" version of the game, but its about 90% complete IMO. I still have to work on the script a little bit, but the graphics are pretty much done. I've had a lot of "life" situations come up recently, so rather than pushing back the open beta trials, I'm putting this out in order to get feedback and work from there. I really hope that everyone else will enjoy the game as much as I have.

2 things to remember, I used the Final Fantasy (U) [!] version of the rom to make the patch, so I can't guarantee it will work correctly with other versions (and we did experience problems before when patching to other versions, so if you use another rom image do so at your own risk), and second, I have NOT put in an NPC to direct you to see Princess Sarah before you leave Coneria, so it is possible not to get the Lute in the beginning of the game if you don't go to her room. Personally, I would approach this game like you would any other RPG that you've never played before. The game is roughly still the same, but there are a few changes that were made, additional rooms, a new town, new cave, new bonus dungeon, etc. So look around, explore, talk to everyone. If you get stuck, feel free to post in this thread or pm me. I hope everyone enjoys what I've come up with and I look forward to any and all feedback about what you like and what you don't. The official v 1.0 will be out by the Christmas holidays and hopefully by then I'll have worked out my ASM coding issues. Thank you to all of my beta testers and to Disch for helping me get as far as I have. I could not have done this without all of you.

Enjoy. 

[Duke2go]

Hello all,

Hadn't been on here to post in awhile. The open beta was very well received, and I'm about to release beta v 2.0 in the next few days. I've actually been making steady progress and changes on the game, and I'll make it a point to upload some new screen shots soon. The Facebook page has been much simpler to update, so I've been directing more effort there. For those who don't know, a Lets Play series was done for the open beta version of the game and I wanted to share that for anyone who was interested, and to give some exposure to Active_ate for putting the series together (absolutely unsolicited I might add). Here's a link to the video series

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNWBryyo3nIWqFsOLhjM1wouFLMFJFmh7

Thank you to everyone who has shown interest in the game and I look forward to any feedback or comments about the project.

[A.D.R.I.A.N]

Long time no see Duke2go, keep up the good work  .

[Duke2go]

Long time no se Duke2go, keep up the good work  .

It has been awhile. Glad to be back. 
The Lets Play series sparked new life into me and the project, so I've been busy. Going to be putting out open beta v 2.0 soon with even farther upgraded graphics. I'm including some screenshots of the current version now since I had said I would. And thank you once again to essellejaye, Disch, and everyone else for the fix of the ATB patches, which means ATB is back in the game again. So far I've tested it, and it works just like it is supposed to!!!!

Coneria Town



















Coneria Castle














Temple of Fiends (Present Day)
























(and before anyone mentions it, the wall tiles were originally in Little Samson I believe and have been altered only so slightly) 

Those are just some of the current updates to the graphics in the project. I'm still tinkering with things and I'll upload new screenshots here soon. I'm still trying to divide between working to pay bills and working on the project, so its slow going. I am in need of a music coordinator if anyone is interested in lending their talents to the project. While I still have some of the compositions that have been made for the game, my composer was unable to complete the project with my time schedule. I definitely understand since even I didn't expect to still be working on this after this long. But it has been worth it. Since ATB has been re-introduced, I just need to work out some coding to give the moving effects that I've dreamt of since the beginning. As far as I know, Disch still has the music engine written, so its just a matter of composing and inserting the music, which is currently beyond my abilities. I will learn how to do it on my own if I must, but some help would certainly be appreciated so I can put a bow on this one and call it a success. As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

[cospefogo]

OH MY!
Just found this marvelous work!

Final Fantasy 1 on NES is the most important game of
my youth. I used to play it, side by side with Ultima Exodus
for months. I was even planning to play it again sometime,
and this "new version" just arrived at the right moment.

I will keep close to the postings here.
Eager to play it!

Regards,
Cospefogo.

[Disch]

As far as I know, Disch still has the music engine written, so its just a matter of composing and inserting the music, which is currently beyond my abilities. I will learn how to do it on my own if I must, but some help would certainly be appreciated so I can put a bow on this one and call it a success.

It might be worth talking to Ben Boldt.

This thread is worth a read (and a listen, there are several audio clips):

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,21907.0.html

[Rodimus Primal]

Looks sweet so far. I'll have to make time to play it next release.