ROM Hacks: Skies of Arcadia: Legends Maeson Released

[RHDNBot]

Update By: Maeson

Skies of Arcadia: Legends Maeson is a hack for Skies of Arcadia: Legends... Why yes, the author is still pretty bad with names.

Skies of Arcadia is a turn based J-RPG originally developed for the Dreamcast by Overworks. Later it was ported to the Gamecube, with improvements here and there, new content and the Dreamcast DLC added too. This hack is for the Gamecube version.

About the game itself, Skies of Arcadia: Legends is a lighthearted turn based J-RPG that combines your standard monster fighting with ship battles, set in a fantastical world of floating lands, airships and treasures... And Air Pirates. Lots of those.

This hack attempts to improve upon the original game by increasing its low difficulty, and balancing several aspects of the game like the abilities and spells each character can learn, or nerfing healing items, for example.

In short, SOALM tries to give a new feeling to the original Skies of Arcadia: Legends.

There's a ridiculously long Readme for anyone who has interest in this, with details and info on this hack and the game itself.

RHDN Project Page

Relevant Link

[Bonesy]

QUOTH THE SERVER (more or less): 404

[xnamkcor]

Looks like I just got an excuse to use my Wii U USB adapter. Does it rely on the analog triggers? I may have removed the springs on my controller.

[Maeson]

L and R is used in:

Controlling the camera, but you can use the C-Stick to move the camera too, so no worries.

Controlling how high or low your ship sails. You can use the C-Stick too to increase or lower altitude (Pressing up or down).
The camera while sailing is on the D-Pad, if you ask.

Scroll through your characters in the menu while you are seeing for example his/her stats and equipment, but you can just press B and choose another character.

Based on that I think you could play without them, as anything L and R do you can do by other means.

[xnamkcor]

Cool. I must be really bad at this game. I'm in danger of dying on the intro mission.

[Maeson]

Yeah, even in the original game, the beginning is kind of tight, as you have to go through it with limited healing items and Magic points for spells.

After that introduction you'll have access to shops, better equipment and you can sail around for fish to restore HP, at the beginning of the game they are really useful and can save you some money.

[gadesx]

The only thing I don't like of this game is the battle encounters with monsters using the airship,
it's destroys my aim of explore the world.

I see the difficulty good, only that some battles can be very long.

[Maeson]

That's precissely why you start this mod with an accessory that lowers random encounters, and you can get a better one later (that was also improved in that regard, it lowers the chance more).

In fact it's something that I talked about in the readme; the encounter rate can be annoying for some, and I understand why (I even give the same example: Exploring while sailing).

I personally don't have problems with the GC version (the dreamcast one has a higher encounter rate).
I've played many 8 and 16 bit rpgs with worse random encounters for this one to bother me.

[xnamkcor]

That's precissely why you start this mod with an accessory that lowers random encounters, and you can get a better one later (that was also improved in that regard, it lowers the chance more).

In fact it's something that I talked about in the readme; the encounter rate can be annoying for some, and I understand why (I even give the same example: Exploring while sailing).

I personally don't have problems with the GC version (the dreamcast one has a higher encounter rate).
I've played many 8 and 16 bit rpgs with worse random encounters for this one to bother me.

The encounter rate seems fine.

Something you talked about in the readme? You talked about everything in the readme. I wouldn't be surprised it there is a recipe for pot roast in the readme.

[Maeson]

Actually no, I thought of it, but I couldn't find a place for that.

Maybe in the future.

[xnamkcor]

Actually no, I thought of it, but I couldn't find a place for that.

Maybe in the future.

I've noticed that things like HP and Gold are in about 5 places at once and if you modify them the game junks that address. But at least it still accepts the change. Also, HP seems to be a 2-byte signed integer, but the game doesn't check to see if my HP is below 0 until I take damage. I'm tempted to go back to the original game, but I'll tough it out since I think I'll like playing this more. I only ever played it for a few minutes on the Dreamcast before.

PS: Thanks for supplying hashes for the base ROM. Gets annoying not having a reference for what I'm supposed to be patching with a lot of the hacks/trans on this site.

[Maeson]

If you are talking about HP and gold cheats, I'm sorry but i'm of no help there, as the test playthroughs where done without cheats or even save states.

If you still find the introduction kind of tough I'll give some tips:

Spoiler

To deal with the soldiers is best to make both characters attack the same target, they most probably take him out
in one round and you'll avoid being attacked by him.

Vyse starts with Red Element, and Aika with Green, you can change them with the Y button during a fight. it's in your best interest to fight a couple of times and learn Pyri and Sacri, they will make your life much easier. But try to save some magic points for the big guy at the end of the introduction.

Pyri is a fire spell that will do a pretty good ammount of damage, taking out the soldiers in one hit, Sacri is a healing spell.

The Defend command is very useful in this game, it halves any type of damage, and increases your chances of counter-attack normal attacks, which is the only thing the soldiers do.

You can stop the random encounters if you disable the alarm, if you want. Kinda funny they added that but there it is.

[close]

About the hashes, no worries.

[xnamkcor]

If you are talking about HP and gold cheats, I'm sorry but i'm of no help there, as the test playthroughs where done without cheats or even save states.

If you still find the introduction kind of tough I'll give some tips:

Spoiler

To deal with the soldiers is best to make both characters attack the same target, they most probably take him out
in one round and you'll avoid being attacked by him.

Vyse starts with Red Element, and Aika with Green, you can change them with the Y button during a fight. it's in your best interest to fight a couple of times and learn Pyri and Sacri, they will make your life much easier. But try to save some magic points for the big guy at the end of the introduction.

Pyri is a fire spell that will do a pretty good ammount of damage, taking out the soldiers in one hit, Sacri is a healing spell.

The Defend command is very useful in this game, it halves any type of damage, and increases your chances of counter-attack normal attacks, which is the only thing the soldiers do.

You can stop the random encounters if you disable the alarm, if you want. Kinda funny they added that but there it is.

[close]

About the hashes, no worries.

Yeah, I noticed the colors thing and looked up a RPS chart. I've considered using Pyr, but I seem to only get 4 uses. So I'll save it for the boss.

PS: It also seems to do a <max check on my HP when I get hit. So my plan will have to be altered.

http://i.imgur.com/8lydvUn.png

http://i.imgur.com/tzGmLQv.png

Edit: I'm out of the first dungeon and I like the game so far. I'd say "Good job on the hack", but I have no idea what's different. The max money is FF FF FF (Big Endian(as if it matter when it's symmetrical)).

http://i.imgur.com/YKalI9h.png

[Maeson]

Yes, in this game you can can have a lot of max gold.

There is one rank you can get that needs you to hold one million of gold coins. to give you an idea.

About the elements (Or colors) and such, don't believe the charts you can find floating around internet. I've seen quite a few being wrong (Like green being effective against yellow, when is the other way around). I remember being confused my first time playing this game because the differences in the charts I found.

You have in the readme (How not) a small table with how elements and how they work in the mod, right below the magic changes.

[xnamkcor]

Yes, in this game you can can have a lot of max gold.

There is one rank you can get that needs you to hold one million of gold coins. to give you an idea.

About the elements (Or colors) and such, don't believe the charts you can find floating around internet. I've seen quite a few being wrong (Like green being effective against yellow, when is the other way around). I remember being confused my first time playing this game because the differences in the charts I found.

You have in the readme (How not) a small table with how elements and how they work in the mod, right below the magic changes.

Now I just have to find out the difference between purple and blue, purple and red, and yellow and green. Maybe I'll find a guide with pictures.

[Ryan914]

Given that I played the original and Legends I can give you some advice:

The Six Moon Stone Colors which are the attributes of spells and enemy types

Red is that of Fire
Green is that of Nature and Healing
Purple is that of Ice
Blue is that of Water and Wind
Yellow is that of Electricity
Silver is that of Life and Death

- You have a paltry amount of SP early on, Focus may be a necessity.
- Do not battle the Loopers until you have something that can assure a 100% Hit Rate (Either it be a skill or piece of equipment), there are also 6 versions of them; each based on an element.
- In Legends there is a bounty hunting system, those bosses do give good loot and equipment, so it does help out, especially here in this version where the difficulty is increased
- One of the Biggest roadblocks in this game is early on against Bleigock, keep a handy supply of healing items due to the fact it can inflict poison on your party, if you obtained any Pyri Boxes before hand, use them. Also go back and save immediately after defeating Bleigock as you will fight ANOTHER boss battle.
- Moonberries are your go to for learning S.Moves, try and get as many as possible, learning all the S.Moves makes the game much easier to deal with. (Especially Delta Shield; This makes the South Ocean easier to handle as the Gravers are the most dangerous as they cast Eterni; Instant Death Spell)
- In Airship Battles; The colors represent the amount of damage the enemy will inflict next. Red being more serious than Yellow and Green.
- Invest heavily in Purple Magic early on due to the fact it has the cheapest SP cost of all of them and can be useful in a pinch against most bosses.
- There are stat boosting seeds you will find, later on if you perform the right conditions, you should be able to buy them for 5,000 Gold a pop.
- Never neglect Increm/Incremus, Quika, Silenis, or Driln/Drilnos. In Later Ship Battles you should be able to use Magic laced shots to silence Magic using creatures and Driln to weaken enemy ships. Increm/Incremus and Quika help bolster the ship's parameters in battle.
- In Airship battles, also carry a supply of repair kits, you only have a limited supply of MP, even with healing spells, you still should conserve MP for Buffing/Debuffing.
- The Swashbuckling Rank easily goes up if you say the right thing during dialogue choices (Generates a noise if you chose the right option). Running away too often causes it to go down.

[xnamkcor]

Given that I played the original and Legends I can give you some advice:

The Six Moon Stone Colors which are the attributes of spells and enemy types

Red is that of Fire
Green is that of Nature and Healing
Purple is that of Ice
Blue is that of Water and Wind
Yellow is that of Electricity
Silver is that of Life and Death

- You have a paltry amount of SP early on, Focus may be a necessity.
- Do not battle the Loopers until you have something that can assure a 100% Hit Rate (Either it be a skill or piece of equipment), there are also 6 versions of them; each based on an element.
- In Legends there is a bounty hunting system, those bosses do give good loot and equipment, so it does help out, especially here in this version where the difficulty is increased
- One of the Biggest roadblocks in this game is early on against Bleigock, keep a handy supply of healing items due to the fact it can inflict poison on your party, if you obtained any Pyri Boxes before hand, use them. Also go back and save immediately after defeating Bleigock as you will fight ANOTHER boss battle.
- Moonberries are your go to for learning S.Moves, try and get as many as possible, learning all the S.Moves makes the game much easier to deal with. (Especially Delta Shield; This makes the South Ocean easier to handle as the Gravers are the most dangerous as they cast Eterni; Instant Death Spell)
- In Airship Battles; The colors represent the amount of damage the enemy will inflict next. Red being more serious than Yellow and Green.
- Invest heavily in Purple Magic early on due to the fact it has the cheapest SP cost of all of them and can be useful in a pinch against most bosses.
- There are stat boosting seeds you will find, later on if you perform the right conditions, you should be able to buy them for 5,000 Gold a pop.
- Never neglect Increm/Incremus, Quika, Silenis, or Driln/Drilnos. In Later Ship Battles you should be able to use Magic laced shots to silence Magic using creatures and Driln to weaken enemy ships. Increm/Incremus and Quika help bolster the ship's parameters in battle.
- In Airship battles, also carry a supply of repair kits, you only have a limited supply of MP, even with healing spells, you still should conserve MP for Buffing/Debuffing.
- The Swashbuckling Rank easily goes up if you say the right thing during dialogue choices (Generates a noise if you chose the right option). Running away too often causes it to go down.

When I said it was hard for me to distinguish the colors, I literally was talking about my ability to see colors. But thanks for the advice.

[Maeson]

Now I just have to find out the difference between purple and blue, purple and red, and yellow and green. Maybe I'll find a guide with pictures.

That makes things harder... For enemies the way you can see their color is by the small icons with a picture in them, so it's going to be a little tough there...

For Ship battles you shouldn't worry, as their element is hidden.

About the tips, they are pretty good for the original game, but some of them won't work the same in the mod.

That said, yeah,  Bleigock does not fuck around. And I warn about the swashbuckler rating too, because discovering that you are "The Coward" is not fun.

[xnamkcor]

I made a chart. Partway through making it I realised that I should probably space out the shades more, I can just use the fill tool later. Yellow and Silver aren't done yet because I haven't got them

Edit: Switching to changelog format

0.1 Initial: Mapped all possesed Attack scenarios
0.2: Added rest of scenarios
0.3: Changed from 0-2 scale to a 0.5-1.5 scale
0.4: Switched to opaque color sample

Scale: 0.5 = 0; 1 = 127; 1.5 = 255

https://i.imgur.com/7QyRKDu.png

Edit: I guess I should explain the colors. The upper left is a segment of the border in the in-battle icon. The lower right is a sample of the apparent color of his weapon.

PS: FAQ says "Purle".

PPS: Is there a reason you went down to 50%, but only up to 140%?

[Maeson]

Initally I did put 150% for Purple>Red or Red>Purple, problem is that enemies of those elements got waaaay too easy to defeat, and they felt weak compared to other elements. It was a weakness too big.

Even more in the case of Red, as supermoves just multiply damage and the Crystal line of spells are pictured to be the most powerful ones (Because they only hit one target). Combining both was overkill, and it was most apparent with bosses (As you can cast several Crystal spells in one round, and you damaged bosses way too fast for them to be challenging).

It was reducing the % or increasing their HP, and I saw increasing HP the worst option, as the only problem was with the damage done by those two elements.

I'll look at that "Purle" thing in the readme and fix it.