Is it worth updating my Final Fantasy VI GBA sound restoration ?

[Bregalad]

I did a full sound restoration hack for all 3 of the SNES -> GBA ports, however, now that I have done and updated both FF4 and FF5 several times, FF6 is now the oldest and less maintained of the series, and the one which sound the worst, in the way that it is not faithful to the SNES. Ironically it's the most successful hack too in terms of popularity.

There is the following issues with current version (1.1) of FF6 sound restoration :

• The sound effects are still from the GBA version (except a couple of effects like the Wind which were restored)
• The reverb sounds awful and not SNES-like at all
• The game still uses the original noisy and slow 8-bit mixing routine, it could be adapted to use the faster and less noisy mixing engine from Golden Sun to make the sound less noisy *and* to reduce lag in battle (for example when casting Ultima)
• The music sequencing is not accurate, for example the balance of volume between music tracks is incorrect, the vibrato speed and depth do not match the original, there is no panning (the sound is in mono), etc, etc...
• Only the EU version of the game is supported

I'm a perfectionist so I feel bad for leavnig all those problems in my hack. All those could be fixed rather easily but it would take me a lot of time. The problem is I think that with over 30 thousands downloads the old version of the hack is very widespread and the new one would have some problem to take on the old one. I don't know, what do you guys thinks ?

[FlamePurge]

I'm of the opinion that it's always, 100% worth it to update your work. Who knows, maybe another 30,000 people will download the update to your mod?

[Rodimus Primal]

I say absolutely. There were times I considered leaving my work alone and I continued to update anyway. I'd also make a news article about it so that people will know you've fixed the issues about it. Not everyone will hear about it right away but at least it gets the word out.

[Granville]

I want to say that I don't want to come across as pushy and ungrateful for anything you've done. But since you asked then I assume you want to know- Yes, absolutely. IF you feel comfortable putting the time and effort into it and want to do it, then i'd absolutely welcome it. I have the utmost respect for you and your work. With your hack (which I use alongside the color restoration), FF6A becomes an actually pretty great port with some nice bonus content.

I'm particularly interested that you mentioned audio panning and stereo. I was aware that you removed stereo sound in your hack, which the readme mentions. Is your comment implying an update could be made to restore this now? That would be well worth it. I know the GBA only has one speaker, but I usually use stereo headphones or similar when playing GBA games. It's also cool that you mention lag could be further reduced as well, even with the improved sound quality.

One question- is there anything that can be done about the way the music loops during the final boss' forms? On the SNES, the music seamlessly crossfade to the new track as the boss switches forms, waiting for the track to finish before swapping to the new one. On GBA though the transition is more immediate, it just loads the new track as soon as the form is destroyed and doesn't wait for the song to finish. I assume it's not easy to fix, but I thought i'd ask if you knew anything.

The only reason I can think of not to do an update is if you had plans to fix the sound in other GBA ports of SNES games or something like that. Or of course if you don't want to. Real life also always takes precedence.

I don't think worrying about whether enough people download the newer version should be a factor in the decision. If you're really that concerned about exposure, you could contact one of the staff members here when it's done and see what they can do. Maybe they'll give it an exclusive news article separate from other hacks. But either way I still wouldn't let the worry that it won't get as much attention as the original release stop you from doing it.

[TheZunar123]

I agree with Granville, if you want to put the time and effort into it then I say yes, it's absolutely worth it. I've loved your restoration patches, but as you mention there are still some imperfections and it would be awesome if you fixed them to make the patch up to par with the others. It's actually been a while since I played the game, but if you did update the patch I would definitely pick the game up again to experience the patch.

[Bregalad]

Whoa thank you very much guys for your supports, I didn't expect people to be so motivated about a possible update. So yes, I guess I'll have to do it ! It's a lot of work but I don't care since it is work I enjoy doing.

About the final bosses, unfortunately I do not think I will be able to make them with continious music like the original game did. I suppose the sappy sound engine do not support that - if it does FF6A was not programmed with that in mind so it would mean a lot of hacking to make it use that and that would go way beyond what I can do at the momment.

[TheZunar123]

To be honest I was considering asking you about it, but I think you mentioned in one of the readmes that because of the time and effort these patches require you don't intend to do more for any other games or something along those lines. Unless I misread it?

[bradzx]

Well.... there is word for Daniel Byran.   YES!  YES!  YES!

[Bregalad]

To be honest I was considering asking you about it, but I think you mentioned in one of the readmes that because of the time and effort these patches require you don't intend to do more for any other games or something along those lines. Unless I misread it?

I wrote the readme straight after putting a lot of effort into a hack, so I don't feel like taking another one right away. One or two years later, though, it's a different things, and perfectionism starts to resurface.

[Bregalad]

So good news guys, it seems doing this is technically possible ! (It might seems obvious but actually wasn't, considering FF6 leaves much fewer RAM unused as FF4 and FF5).

The frame rate will unfortunately continue to drop in some cases, like when calling Flare or Holy for example, however it will reduce less often than in the original GBA version, as the sound engine will be faster (but not as fast as FF5 - do to the requirement to use slow WRAM instead of fast IRAM).

[Gedankenschild]

Nice!

[Spooniest]

Cools!!! I want to hear it.

You're restoring all the sound effects? Totally boss dude!

[Bregalad]

So the ~75 musical songs are now converted, the 261 sound effects are remaining !

[Spooniest]

God thank you. I love the SNES sound effects and hate the GBA's paltry imitation of them.

Go, Bregalad, go!

[Midna]

As long as you don't end up deleting any of the new sound effects that were introduced (if there were any? Not sure). Your FF4 Advance restoration is pretty great, but I was a little disappointed that it ended up removing the airship engine in the intro.

[Rand]

Neat. I'll be happy to be a user of the updated files.  Thank you, Bregalad.

[Bregalad]

As long as you don't end up deleting any of the new sound effects that were introduced (if there were any? Not sure). Your FF4 Advance restoration is pretty great, but I was a little disappointed that it ended up removing the airship engine in the intro.

Wow, I can't belive someone noticed ! Effectively I did that because I didn't have data for those sound effects in the SNES ROMs, and I tought that anyway it was only the intro, and having an intro with no sound effects was perfectly sensible.

I have no idea if they added sound effects in FF6 but I'll note your remark, if there's anything GBA only I'll make sure to keep it.

[Spooniest]

I notice that the GBA version doesn't fade in the same places as the SNES version...had you looked into fixing that or is there just no way?

Often, in the GBA version, the music is supposed to fade out but simply continues until the music changes to something else. I dunno....have you had this problem or do I have my sound configuration messed up?

[Midna]

It's not just you. The music just stops playing where it would fade out in the SNES game. Now whether that's due to programming issues or just developer laziness, I don't know.

[Bregalad]

If you would be more specific about the problem than "in some places" that'd help. However I am afraid I can only change the music data itself, and not how it is controlled by the game, so I cannot directly change which music or sound effect is played when, I can only alter the data for the music and sound effect themselves. Which also means I cannot control when music starts, stops or fades.