Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Quality hack [PSX]

[Spooniest]

Heyo. I had a question about this a long time ago, but never got around to asking:

• Impossibility to keep the initial equipment of Alucard (avoiding a meeting with Death, using the trick with a wolf, is no longer possible);

Why was this done, particularly?

[paul_met]

Heyo. I had a question about this a long time ago, but never got around to asking:

Why was this done, particularly?

This is done so that the player is not tempted to play dishonestly.

[Spooniest]

This is done so that the player is not tempted to play dishonestly.

The only reason you took out the ability to keep Alucard's equipment was because you personally think that it's cheating and should never be done by anyone?

... So you basically wanted to make sure that people who find doing this glitch fun don't want to play your version.

[Queue]

The only reason you took out the ability to keep Alucard's equipment was because you personally think that it's cheating and should never be done by anyone?

... So you basically wanted to make sure that people who find doing this glitch fun don't want to play your version.

Hold on, it's 100% his prerogative. It's a bug and he wanted to fix a bug. He's not forcing you to use his mod to the game: take it or leave it.

Pedantically, "personally think that it's cheating" is completely wrong: bug abuse is cheating. Whether you think a given form of cheating is acceptable is opinion, but him calling it "play[ing] dishonestly" is objective.

[Spooniest]

Hold on, it's 100% his prerogative. It's a bug and he wanted to fix a bug. He's not forcing you to use his mod to the game: take it or leave it.

Pedantically, "personally think that it's cheating" is completely wrong: bug abuse is cheating. Whether you think a given form of cheating is acceptable is opinion, but him calling it "play[ing] dishonestly" is objective.

You may be right, but I don't like it. Shall I conceal my displeasure to spare people's feelings? I'm not being outright abusive as so many internet users are; one would think that might earn me some points. I don't like it. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.

[ShadowOne333]

Sadly, I kinda side with Spooniest on this one.
I kinda liked being able to exploit the bug to get the best equipment earlier, so many people who liked to do that might feel alienated by this hack, for as many QoL changes it brings to SotN.

Then again, those that might want to do this could easily go for the cheat code route and enable them on New Game, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Side question, how do I apply the patch to the game in .pbp format?

[paul_met]

The only reason you took out the ability to keep Alucard's equipment was because you personally think that it's cheating and should never be done by anyone?

... So you basically wanted to make sure that people who find doing this glitch fun don't want to play your version.

I don't force anyone to use my hack. But I did my hack the way I thought was right.

Side question, how di I apply the patch to the game in .pbp format?

The patch description says in what format the image of the original version of the game should be. PBP is not supported.

[gadesx]

The sword familiar bug in shop works, it was like infinite money.
I didn't try the weapon-death bug, I have no idea to do that well.

[Spooniest]

I don't force anyone to use my hack. But I did my hack the way I thought was right.

I question the logic of taking out this, and only this exploit. You don't seem to have mentioned being able to do the dive kick after returning from the Wolf Form, even without the Leap Stone. Yet this can be a massive early sequence breaking bug, allowing a player to collect the Mist Form and the Bat Form without ever having visited the Royal Chapel or Castle Keep.

You seem to have gone to an extreme amount of trouble, going as far as to edit the level design of the Castle Entrance to make a block where there was not one before, to take out this and only this exploit. Why stop there? Where do you draw the line on what is cheating?

I only go so far as to make a complaint known about it because I honestly think every single other feature of your hack is extremely well done, and if this one exploit were still in, I would essentially not use vanilla SotN anymore.

I doubt this will convince you to change your mind, but I got off my chest what I wanted to get off my chest. Excellent work otherwise, btw. I don't know if I said so. And apologies for being brusque; as an "Essential" Worker, I am under tremendous stress atm.

Edit: The exploits of exiting the castle with Richter and exiting the Castle with Bat Form in the Royal Chapel also were removed, so I amend my previous statement. I still think it's an awful lot of trouble to go to to remove what is actually quite a fun and non-game-breaking bug to exploit, which has always been one of my favorites.

[pleasejust]

I love this hack and welcome any bug fixes.

[CO_Andy]

This is done so that the player is not tempted to play dishonestly.

Any chance you'll release a new patch without the fun glitches removed?

[pleasejust]

Are you people kidding me? Fun glitches? Ya, so fun to cruise through the whole game, kill everything in one hit. If anything more glitches could be fixed.

[Spooniest]

I am not kidding you, I am 100% dead serious. But that's all I'll add, as I've already outlined my point of view in exhaustive detail.

[paul_met]

This bug disrupts the balance in the game and makes it pointless to search for more powerful equipment.
You should decide already - do you want to play or messing around?
If you choose the last one, then no one forbids you to use cheat codes.

[CO_Andy]

If the glitches are easily accessible (as in a new player discovering these glitches on their own without a guide) then you would have a point, but if a convoluted method is involved then there's no point in removing them.

[Spooniest]

If the glitches are easily accessible (as in a new player discovering these glitches on their own without a guide) then you would have a point, but if a convoluted method is involved then there's no point in removing them.

There's not 'no point.' The point is Paul_met doesn't think it's fair to have it in the game. This is how he envisions it, this is how it is.

You should decide already - do you want to play or messing around?
If you choose the last one, then no one forbids you to use cheat codes.

Fair enough. The best answer I can come up with is that I am not sure how to use cheat codes for the game in question in a way that will work, as they can be dodgy depending on the system/emulator used. But I can't very well say "Put it back in because I'm too stupid to research how to do it myself." I won't say that, because it'd be lazy and stupid to say that, on the face of it.

You win.

EDIT: I would like to add, as well, on a totally unrelated topic, that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, unlike just about every other PlayStation game, seems to be based around a base resolution of 256x240, as opposed to the PSX Standard of 320x240.

Near as I can guess, this might be because Rondo of Blood (its predecessor, and the place the Richter Sprites and I'm guessing most of the Dracula Sprites [not his head, that was redrawn] and lots of the enemy sprites come from) is a PCE-CD game, where the base resolution was 256x240. Stretching it on a CRT to 4:3 wouldn't have had any noticeable effect on horizontal scrolling; stretching it in an emulator without bilinear filtering applied, does.

If you are looking for ideas on what to do next with this patch, I hope this information is of interest to you.

[mirage548]

well after playing mix hacked QHACK+ HARD TYPE+ shader HQ-X2, game is prety hard, even with critical and past game experience. but some stuff can break the fun in hard type like:
-critical still ruin the fun when doing normal dmg 15,15,15,15,128(c),15,15,75(c)
-same happen with HOLY WATER, is ok that do normal dmg 1,1,1,55(c),1,1,1 etc etc
-yatsusuna katana still works like CRISSANGRIM and happen the same as holy water but with more dmg
-mod should make alucard use holy water / cross like richter to get more diference with original game.

i play it with 99luck and non alucard gear from the start.

[Spooniest]

I don't see any information anywhere on how all of this was done. What utilities were used? I'm not aware of any SotN level editors anywhere besides a thread that was abandoned by 2012 on a utility called SNEER.

[ViperAcidZX]

The position of the HUD is already changed in this hack (v.1.1).

Ah, thank you.

[mz]

I don't see any information anywhere on how all of this was done. What utilities were used? I'm not aware of any SotN level editors anywhere besides a thread that was abandoned by 2012 on a utility called SNEER.

Most hacks are created without any kind of level editor or "utilities".

He probably only used an emulator with debugging tools, hex editors, assemblers, his own programs, etc. and a lot of hard work, doing reverse engineering, acquiring more knowledge, doing trial and error, etc.