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

[TheZunar123]

totally under levelled, bad equipment and helpless party.

I was not aware that level 40s with endgame equipment and items  is "underlevelled" and "helpless" by your standards. Several characters know Ultima (Terra, Locke, and Edgar, just to name three), just spam it and you should win easy.

[Bregalad]

Well maybe, but then Kefka kann one hit KO character whenever he wants to, and can inflict status alimtents to all 4 character simulatenously.

I did not mean to be offensive - they might be levelled enough for a normal playthrough, but here I don't care about the battle itself : I'd just like to test the ending's timing, and will probably have to do it at least a dozen of times, so if I should do anything else than spamming strong attacks and healing, it's bothersome.

The fact that Kefka has a super annoying intro that is 5 minutes long is also annoying (but that's not your fault) - at least in FF5 you could save after the super-annoying ExDeath intro, so you could resume your save and go to the final battle right away - something I did at least 30 times for my previous hack - and I was glad to have my save where the characters were powerleveld I would basically just spam holy/flare/bahamut, heal and win every time in a matter of minutes.

Maybe you should indicate which characters you recommand me to use for the battle, because if some of them are powerhouses but I don't have them in my party, that's not very useful.

[Spooniest]

If you're using visual boy advance-m as your emulator, Bregalad, this file ought to work.

I've just beaten Kefka. Put this in the same folder as a rom file named "FF6.gba" and load it up using the savestate menu.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tcw1qqf0ozurpqm/FF61.sgm

[TheZunar123]

Apologies if my response sounded mean, just the way you worded it rubbed me the wrong way.

I'm not sure how well savestates will work, but if it doesn't then Terra, Shadow, Edgar, and Celes should be a great party. All four know Ultima (along with plenty of healing magic) and have pretty high magic stats (especially the girls). Terra can also Dualcast, though she is a bit lacking in levels. Cyan is also very high leveled, though his magic is notoriously low so he's more of a fallback.

[Bregalad]

Apologies if my response sounded mean, just the way you worded it rubbed me the wrong way.

No, it's my turn to apology, I sounded like a complete badass, but that is because I was pissed of loosing so much time to try and fail to beat Cefka.

@Spooniest I did not want to use savestates, because I want to test the timing on the real hardware. I run into many cases where VBA slowed down and not the real hardware, and as such the synchronization timings are different. For example the intro in the snow do not duration the same length on the real hardware and on VBA, it is slower on VBA, and if the music is synchronized correctly in GBA it is cut off in the middle on real hardware. On the other hand, if the music is synchronized correctly on real hardware, it ends too soon on VBA. In order to avoid this problem for the ending, I'd use only the real hardware as a reference.

Nevertheless I could load your savestate, and use the real save you made previously, if you did make one and if you are more prepared than with TheZunar123's save.

In the end the best would be a real save file (not save state) where the save is cheated and everyone is a powerhouse, so I can kick Cefka's butt quickly (since I'll have to do that a couple of times to test the ending's timings).

[Spooniest]

Well all I did was load Zunars save and beat Kefka, but I am a master Blitzman so there's that

I'm snowed in today so I'll run the game and get you some cool stuff.
January 20, 2016, 11:38:25 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wysr5xadn7urxfr/FF6.sav

You have a party that lacks Gogo and Umaro (they are on the airship). You have several Ragnaroks. Everyone is level 99. You are saved at the last save point in Kefka's Tower.

I'll warn you, this was done very quickly so I didn't really stop to grind for magic. Nobody even knows Curaga. I'd send Terra into the final battle, as she knows Arise. Also send Locke, cuz he's got the Valiant Knife and the Master Scroll equipped. That'll give you roughly 40,000 damage per attack with him. I'd also give Shadow my reccomendation, as you possess 3 pinwheels, and he's got a Memento Ring, which might make the Goddess Tier waste one of her Reposes on him.

Hope this helps.

[Bregalad]

Oh thanks. I managed to beat the game and measured the events with a stopwatch with TheZunar's save anyway. The trick was to use only the 4 strongest character, equiping 3 of them with ribbons, and NOT using any reserve characters, which are too weark.

But I guess this could be useful for the next time, so I have to check if the events are effectively synchronized.

Also @TheZunar's, your save file of the Phantom train is useful, because this weird sound effect plays when the train stops and I have to test this, so thank you very much even if your ending save would not have been useful, your save file still is useful. Also, I apologize for having acted like an ass before.

[Spooniest]

Dagnabbit.

Oh well, that's 5 hours I spent playing FF6. Could be worse.

[TheZunar123]

Also @TheZunar's, your save file of the Phantom train is useful, because this weird sound effect plays when the train stops and I have to test this, so thank you very much even if your ending save would not have been useful, your save file still is useful. Also, I apologize for having acted like an ass before.

Awesome! I'm glad it helped you more than expected. Let me know if there's some other spot in the game you need to test (e.g. the opera), I'd be happy to provide another save. And it's alright, no hard feelings.

[Spooniest]

Hey, Breg, if you're interested, these are the codes I found for the EU version. They are Gameshark codes. They were here.

Spoiler

This one must be on for any codes to work:

910AD66CB9B3
DAD2BA7FA747
1BC8302DE782

This code makes every battle give you 100,000 EXP, and sometimes the enemies in Narshe drop Ragnaroks, but mostly Smoke Bombs.

C6ED873217FD
38C7E7668753
C6ED873217FD
64EC0EB5A48E
06875D32C7F7
C6ED873217FD
6C2C2C1676DD
06875D32C7F7

[close]

[FAST6191]

For the record VBA can generate real saves well enough, and in doing so take and convert between all the various formats gamefaqs and such might like to use . File -> export -> battery save is what you want. It should work for most flash carts, though AKAIO (and probably wood as well) in conjunction with the EZ 3 in 1 might add an extra header depending upon the version.

[Piotyr]

Bregalad ever think of porting this to the PC steam release? Its based on the GBA version so much so that its got a copy of the GBA port inside it! .

[Kallisto]

[Snipped]

I had a idea, but the MSU type patch really limits things currently with hardware. Personally I would not play FF6A on a rig just for the MSU-type of music. Hope one of these days someone will try to patch it up to consoles.

[Bregalad]

Dagnabbit.

Oh well, that's 5 hours I spent playing FF6. Could be worse.

Your save file is very useful! I could kick Cefka's ass much faster, and will probably have to do that a couple of times more, as the music is still not prefectly synchronized. Thank you!

Bregalad ever think of porting this to the PC steam release?

Nope. I wasn't even aware of this release, and anyway, a sane person wanting to play FF6 on the PC will emulate the SNES verison.

[Spooniest]

Your save file is very useful! I could kick Cefka's ass much faster, and will probably have to do that a couple of times more, as the music is still not prefectly synchronized. Thank you!

Not a problem! Thank you for doing what I wish I could do, and fixing the audio in this game!

[Reiska]

The steam release doesn't need an audio restoration anyway, it uses the original SNES tracks.

[Spooniest]

It could use the sound effect restore, as all sound effects that aren't music are still from the gba version. But this is (ahem) starting to sound very involved. So I think it's unlikely.

[ShadowOne333]

Benn lurking in this thread for long enough to drop a post.
I am waiting for this update to combine it with the colour patch and finally give the FF franchise a try starting with this GBA port and entry in the series.

Best of luck with the remaining sounds!

[TheZunar123]

Personally I would recommend playing the SNES version for your first playthrough since it runs at a better framerate and would still ultimately have better sound quality (the restoration patch can't get it exactly the same but it'll be close), plus you won't have to wait. The only thing the GBA version really has over SNES (save for the different font and menus) is the ability to sprint freely, but that can easily be fixed with patches.

But that's just my two cents. The restoration will be awesome, especially for people like me who own a GBA flash cart so we can play FF6 on the go, so not trying to knock it or anything. I just think SNES would give you a better first impression of the game.

[Spooniest]

Every gamer has their own style of doing things though. If the dude wants to try the GBA version cuz they've researched and found it to be the most complete, I wouldn't blame them...and it is easier to run than the PC version. The PC version has better music (for the moment) and lacks the slowdown of the gba version, however.

Until the patch is done, I'd say why not give the PC version a shot? I played it and it's definitely Final Fantasy VI.