Final Fantasy I Redux [COMPLETE]

[Spindaboy]

Introduction
Hey everyone! Thought I'd reveal a hack I've been working for a week or so now. This is similar to other hacks which emphasize on "modernizing" FFI, making it updated and overall more enjoyable to play. However, I have taken much more creative freedom than most others. Also (before anyone else mentions it), the base patch for the ROM is Final Fantasy Restored, an excellent patch that fixes many of the bugs plaguing FFI and updates the feel of the game. So make sure you check that out too!

EDIT: The hack is now complete! Download the latest version Here

-Watch the Trailer-

Features

• 12 Default Jobs
• Revamped Enemy & Job Stats
• New Weapon Types (Spears, Bows, Harps, Katanas, and More!)
• Better EXP/Gil Scaling
• Summon Magic
• Updated Spells
• Enhanced Sprites
• Other Random Stuff (ex. Most Magic Key Doors are Unlocked Now)

Jobs


Screenshots

[Xardas]

So far, I like what I see. 
Viking, Dragoon, and Knight are obviously melee Jobs (with high HP, Strength and Heave Armor I assume). Are they gonna be somehow different, except for their equippable weapons? A command, for example.
And what about the Job promotion? Since I think it's difficult to think about 12 upgraded versions, I suppose this has been abolished?
I hope the Bard is in balanced compared to the other Jobs. Sure, for some battles, a certain Job might be absolutely not useful. But it shouldn't be a burden in too many battles, as players will be raging because of being stuck with a Bard forever.

[Spindaboy]

So far, I like what I see. 
Viking, Dragoon, and Knight are obviously melee Jobs (with high HP, Strength and Heave Armor I assume). Are they gonna be somehow different, except for their equippable weapons? A command, for example.

Unfortunately to my knowledge there is no way to implement Job commands... However, I have done my very best to differentiate stats for jobs even if they are closely related. Also, different weapon types have unique properties so there is a reason to use one Job over another (depending upon personal preference).

And what about the Job promotion? Since I think it's difficult to think about 12 upgraded versions, I suppose this has been abolished?

Yes. The promoted Job data is what I used to substitute in the custom Jobs so there is no more room for any more data. When I get to that point in the game I will remove the event.

I hope the Bard is in balanced compared to the other Jobs. Sure, for some battles, a certain Job might be absolutely not useful. But it shouldn't be a burden in too many battles, as players will be raging because of being stuck with a Bard forever.

My number 1 priority was making sure every job was equally viable, despite not being able to include any Job commands. For example, the Bard has high Agility combined with Harps that have a chance to inflict a status effect.

[Celice]

For job abilities, you could cheat the effect by giving class-unique equipment a spell that's been refit to be a class ability. For example if you had a Cannoneer class, you could have the cannons cast Boom when used as an item.

[Spindaboy]

For job abilities, you could cheat the effect by giving class-unique equipment a spell that's been refit to be a class ability. For example if you had a Cannoneer class, you could have the cannons cast Boom when used as an item.

Yup. This is what I'm doing with harps as a replacement for the Sing command.

[Spindaboy]

The hack is now complete and v1.0.0 has been released! Please please please leave feedback on what you think of it and what I can improve on for the next update (please report bugs too). It's hard to know what people would like to see when almost no one says anything

Oh yeah and I made a Trailer. Hope everyone enjoys!

~Spinda

[lexluthermiester]

The hack is now complete and v1.0.0 has been released! Please please please leave feedback on what you think of it and what I can improve on for the next update (please report bugs too). It's hard to know what people would like to see when almost no one says anything

Oh yeah and I made a Trailer. Hope everyone enjoys!

~Spinda

This seems like it'd be fun! I'll give it a try and chime in with thoughts.

[Leviathan Mist]

Would like to at least see AstralEsper properly credited on the hack page. She spent over 6 years working on FF Restored.

After that is done, I might give it a go.

[Spindaboy]

Would like to at least see AstralEsper properly credited on the hack page. She spent over 6 years working on FF Restored.

After that is done, I might give it a go.

Well the credits are submitted- just waiting approval. I understand you, her, and others worked very hard on FF Restored and I greatly appreciate it. I never meant to take the deserved credit away from anybody.

[lexluthermiester]

Would like to at least see AstralEsper properly credited on the hack page. She spent over 6 years working on FF Restored.

After that is done, I might give it a go.

I'm all for giving credit where it's due, but don't you think that came off a bit petty? After all, "Final Fantasy Restored" was credited as the base, which is literally crediting the original makers by proxy. Not trying to create drama, that statement just seemed a little "off" to me..

[Leviathan Mist]

Well the credits are submitted- just waiting approval. I understand you, her, and others worked very hard on FF Restored and I greatly appreciate it. I never meant to take the deserved credit away from anybody.

I saw FF Restored credited in the forum post. That alone, but on the hack page, would be satisfactory to me. I personally don't care about attribution, since this hack is about your changes to the base hack, and not who did what in the base hack.

I'm all for giving credit where it's due, but don't you think that came off a bit petty? After all, "Final Fantasy Restored" was credited as the base, which is literally crediting the original makers by proxy. Not trying to create drama, that statement just seemed a little "off" to me..

FF Restored was credited in this message board post, but not on the hack page. No, I don't think it's petty. Yes, you are trying to create drama. Plagiarism is a serious problem, and I'm trying to give helpful advice to avoid problems down the road. I did give the ROM a quick run-through and noticed it used FF Restored as a base patch, but I had to search through the forums and find this post just to find that it had only been credited here. Note that I clearly requested proper credits "on the hack page." The author of this patch has already posted their intention to post proper credits, and I am satisfied with that. That would have been the end of it, and this whole response post would not even have been necessary.

[Bregalad]

This hack is very interesting and looks great. It seems to really improve the game while keeping more faithful to the original than GFF (but less faithful than FF restored). It's definitely interesting - it's harder and harder to know which version to play

By the way it seems my (small) no-menu music fix is used. I really appreciate my work to be useful to other hacks, however I'd really aprecitate if I was given credit to. I know it was not a major work to get this done, but still.

Something that'd be really great would be to know in shops who can equip weapons and spells (like in the later games, by having characters doing victory dance animation when you select a spell or weapon that is compatible with them). Unfortunately, I already looked hard at how to get this done and finally I gave up. I don't even remember if I did that with the help of Dish' disassembly or if it was before it came out. In all chases, changing it to do that would be hard especially since free ROM would have to be found somewhere.

[Spindaboy]

This hack is very interesting and looks great. It seems to really improve the game while keeping more faithful to the original than GFF (but less faithful than FF restored). It's definitely interesting - it's harder and harder to know which version to play

Thank you! I do plan on eventually adding in just a couple minor additions and bug fixes so be on the lookout for updates

By the way it seems my (small) no-menu music fix is used. I really appreciate my work to be useful to other hacks, however I'd really aprecitate if I was given credit to. I know it was not a major work to get this done, but still.

Credit has been added to the hack page (must be approved first of course). I really appreciate that patch by the way

Something that'd be really great would be to know in shops who can equip weapons and spells (like in the later games, by having characters doing victory dance animation when you select a spell or weapon that is compatible with them). Unfortunately, I already looked hard at how to get this done and finally I gave up. I don't even remember if I did that with the help of Dish' disassembly or if it was before it came out. In all chases, changing it to do that would be hard especially since free ROM would have to be found somewhere.

That would certainly make things easier. If anyone ever finds a way to do that I will gladly add it to the hack Until then all equip-ability can be viewed in the readme file.

[Disch]

That would certainly make things easier. If anyone ever finds a way to do that I will gladly add it to the hack Until then all equip-ability can be viewed in the readme file.

I'm 100% sure I could do that.

The problem is the patch I make would probably be incompatible with your hack.

[Spindaboy]

I'm 100% sure I could do that.

The problem is the patch I make would probably be incompatible with your hack.

Could you patch the ROM with my hack, and then make the required changes?

[Disch]

Could you patch the ROM with my hack, and then make the required changes?

I suppose.  The downside is then I can't use the disassembly... which would make this a bit more difficult, but still doable.

But yeah if you want to throw me a copy of the patch in PM or something, this will be a fun little mini project. 

[Spindaboy]

But yeah if you want to throw me a copy of the patch in PM or something, this will be a fun little mini project. 

Sweet! Thanks a lot man I'll send you a PM right now.

[Bregalad]

I'm 100% sure I could do that.

The problem is the patch I make would probably be incompatible with your hack.

Such a hack (showing dance animation when an appropriate weapon or armor or magic is selectred) would already be very useful on the original game. If you manage to do this it's already awesome. Porting it to existing hacks is just a matter of moving things around.

If I remember well the disassembly was already there but the relevant parts weren't commented at all so it was like looking at any other disassembly.

I looked at how the game accepts or refuses to equip a weapon when you press "A" on it in the menu. There's a table loaded in SRAM saying this so this decision making is super simple. However this table is not loaded in SRAM when entering a shop so this was a major problem. Also magic, weapon and armour shop uses separate routines so they'd have to be hacked 3 times in order to get this done.

[Vanya]

I thought of doing this too. Knowing Disch is going to work on it gives me great confidence it'll happen.

[Disch]

If I remember well the disassembly was already there but the relevant parts weren't commented at all so it was like looking at any other disassembly.

Old version maybe?  The most recent version has all code commented -- with only a few small binary files left marked as "unknown".



So I'm going to start with putting this into vanilla.  And the first thing that's complicated is that equipment and magic permissions are inverted.  For equipment, each piece has 2 bytes that tells you which classes can equip it.  But with magic, each class has a bunch of bytes telling you what spells they can learn.

My original plan was to load up the equipment-style 2-bytes into SRAM for all items in the shop during the shop loading process.  But this won't work directly with magic.  Maybe I can build the 2-byte values manually -- but that'll take a chunk of additional code space... and space is already pretty tight, especially if I want to make this "patch friendly".