Breath of Fire GBA improved

[ThegreatBen]

Ok it's back up again!

I had accidentally deleted my good rom and made the patch off of one I had corrupted, but I managed to copy my changes from the corrupted one and it works perfectly.

[Shade Aurion]

Nice! This will likely be what I start up my Breath of Fire series Let's Play with in the near future. Probably once Terranigma is done ^_^
I'll make sure you're credited in the description of the first episode

[ThegreatBen]

Awesome I love watching people's experience with this hack.

Up to you but if you encounter any bugs or oddities (though by now they should be gone) you can message me here and I'll have them fixed asap.

[Special]

Still compatible with the sound restoration patch? Do I go;

Clean ROM > Sound Restoration > Improved
or
Clean ROM > Improved > Sound Restoration

Also on this hack's page it says "ROM CRC32 4BBBE9A2", I have no idea what this CRC belongs too, it's not the No-Intro one which has a CRC32 of F06422A8 for the (USA) version at least.

[ThegreatBen]

Sorry not sure about the rom version but I've tried a few and it works ok.

As for the order the sound restoration patch and this don't conflict at all so they can be applied in either order.
Here's a sample of the new spell names.

[Shade Aurion]

Awesome I love watching people's experience with this hack.

Up to you but if you encounter any bugs or oddities (though by now they should be gone) you can message me here and I'll have them fixed asap.

Absolutely. The Breath of Fire series is my favourite series bar Dark Souls so i'm well versed, especially in the first 3 games so i'll let you know if anything stands out :3

[ThegreatBen]

Awesome. I always play the first three as a trilogy too.

[Shade Aurion]

I think the only thing the first two games really need is an optional SNES title screen hack now. I assume your hack contains SNES sound and Vivify's soldier rename hack as applying those failed for me because apparently the code already existed XD

[ThegreatBen]

The sound hack is not included but should work perfectly, the soldier name patch isn't necessary as it's included in his retranslation which is in this hack.

[Raph_friend]

The sound hack is not included but should work perfectly, the soldier name patch isn't necessary as it's included in his retranslation which is in this hack.

The sound hack have some bug that glich the bubble after kill monsters.

[ThegreatBen]

The sound hack have some bug that glich the bubble after kill monsters.

Still worth it.

[Raph_friend]

Still worth it.

I'm sorry, i can't play with that bug.

[ThegreatBen]

That's not my patch, but I'm just curious is it actually game breaking?

I play with it and never noticed any problem, what exactly happens?

[Raph_friend]

That's not my patch, but I'm just curious is it actually game breaking?

I play with it and never noticed any problem, what exactly happens?

Only happens on real hardware.

[Shade Aurion]

So in a few days i'll do up a review of this hack as i'm over halfway through Let's Playing it. That said I have some notes if you'd ever like to improve on an already brilliant hack or make this as a separate [Restored] hack (and considering the acclaim the SNES version is getting after it's release on Switch I wouldn't be surprised if you wanted to)

Notes:
- Change 'Gold' to 'Z' and 'Zenny' for consistency with Breath of Fire 2, 3 and 3.
- Include Bregalad's Sound Hack. The SNES sound was better across the board. I found I had to patch the Sound before Improved to get it working. Alternatively, there is a full OST for BoF1 if you'd be able to add that for the soundtrack and use Bregalad's patch for sound effects only.
- Add in the two cut songs 'Unused Bar Theme' and ''Unused Heroic Theme' but i'll mention this later.
- Snes intro sequence/title screen was way better. I made an example of this in the first episode of the Let's Play
- Considering this is supposed to be a rebalance, Nina levels like crazy after Lvl 28. When Ryu and Bo were lvl 30, she was 48 so that may need slight nerfing.
- Change 'fear' and 'scared' back to 'Curse' and 'Cursed' I was immediately confused by what this status was til I noticed the cursed mark floating above my character's head.
- Change 'Life2' item to 'P.Cea' or 'Pcea' for consistency with the rest of the series use of 'Panacea' and so people don't mistake it as a revival item.
- It might be worthwhile to increase the reward amounts from Auria residents for side quests from $20k to $30k so speed runners and lazy people don't have to grind for a billion years for a Gold Bar. The second is available to find so this would be a nice change and still require them to spend $5k of their own money.
- Extend inventory size for party and bank so completionists can have every weapon and armor in one save file. In fact, it would be a good way to implement the cut out Coach item. Perhaps permanently increase the bank inventory but only double the party inventory when the Coach is equipped so the item has a function.
- Add in the Coach item (see above)
- Add in some of the cut end game equipment as random drops from enemies, random fishing/hunting rewards or make them available from the Flea Market. You could rename them after recurring equipment throughout the series to make things easier.
- There are cut areas like the Nanai shop and bar and the unfinished shrine. Now obviously there is no point in adding in Nanai areas buuut.. you could use the maps still. Perhaps have Drogen repaired through an in-game side quest involving collecting certain items and Zenny. In fact, you could add in some of the useless cut items, rename them something else and use them as quest items to rebuild Drogen using the original spriteset from the prologue. Then you could add the unused hero theme for Drogen after it's repaired, keep the original theme inside the main house, and add a basement to the main house and put the unfinished shrine there, switching out blue slimes for gold slimes for easy grinding. You could then add the Nanai Bar map to a house in Drogen and use the unused bar theme song there and place some easter eggs. Maybe alter the map to have an actual bar with tables and chairs though. This would also be a nod to the town building and fairy village from Breath of Fire 2 and 3 aswell ^_^

I should also link this for reference: https://tcrf.net/Breath_of_Fire

Now I know some of these notes are a lot more reasonable than others. Some easy fixes and some lofty suggestions. I just know you're quite a capable hacker so I thought i'd throw some ideas out there as well as a few things i've noticed while playing through Breath of Fire I Improved ^_^

[ThegreatBen]

Some good ideas there, not all of them within my abilities though.

I didnt know life2 wasn't a revival item, interesting.

I had intended to re add the coach item however once it's on its visual effect can never be removed,  thus having Ox pulling the cart as your sole avatar indefinitely.

[Shade Aurion]

Is there a way to apply that only to the overworld? Because then it wouldn't be so bad though some inconsistency if Ox is used in a Karn transformation. Still, it would be nice to have as the sprite is there.

I'm sure if you were open to help, other hackers might be inclined to help you add some of this stuff. I'm sure it's much more difficult then hex editing SNES code though but putting the ideas out there into the universe I felt was a good thing haha

[ThegreatBen]

I'm only skilled enough to find stuff in a hex editor, it's how I've done the entire thing.

While I would love to collaborate with a more skilled hacker none have come forward.

I've been trying to swap Shin and Debo forever to no avail, that's the highest priority in this hack.

[Normmatt]

I've been working on disassembling the europe version of this game, as it was compiled with no optimizations which makes it easier to decompile back into C code.

You can find the current progress here: https://github.com/Normmatt/bof
I want to eventually do a whole new translation of this game with more effort put into it than the original (including expanding item names, menus, etc, and implementing a variable width font) but its going to be awhile before that project gets started.

Theres still a lot of data that needs to be reverse engineered / documented so if anyone wants to help, either get in touch or submit a pull request.

[ThegreatBen]

I'll take a look, the last post in this topic shows what I did manage find in a save file about how transformations are stored

https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=21482.msg371626#msg371626