Secret of Mana, Turbo - Beta 230822

[Queue]

lexluthermiester, I don't really disagree, but when I submit to RHDN that will likely be my last update. This project has already run on for probably double the time I originally planned to give it. By not officially submitting I can keep goading myself into continuing ("the download will break in a week, what can I manage before a week passes" vs "okay, download will last forever, I could do X, but I could also do it tomorrow" and then tomorrow never comes).

By the way, I have appreciated your encouragement. I didn't reply to your previous post(s) because I try to limit myself to only respond to things that require it (so like, if others discuss something in the thread and it's resolved before I read it, I don't add an unnecessary post just because, even if I'm happy with the outcome, etc.); probably makes it seem like I'm ignoring certain people when I'm not, but oh well.



ShockwaveS08, regarding sequence breaks, unless they make you unable to finish a game, I consider them beneficial. Of the two you mention, 1) allows you to get a weapon orb a little early, 2) is totally harmless (and the "Early Luna" hack relies on that behavior).

B1) Great find. After testing, it also causes a soft lock when frostied, petrified or ballooned. I'm sure I can figure out a fix for this.

S1) Timbo, the author of Relocalized, also really really wants this. I've looked into it some in the past, and it's far more complicated than it appears at first glance. Ignoring the technical challenge of adding more little faces, don't forget that more than one person can have the same secondary weapon, or even have it assigned to a weapon another character has equipped. For example, I often set all three characters to have the whip as their secondary so I can quickly "swap, whip post, swap" without changing characters. If I ever implement custom drawing in the ring menu, I'd likely have to consider all three faces stacked along the bottom of a weapon (plus some means of identifying that it's their secondary). Ultimately, this one is just super unimportant: tons of work for a trivial aesthetic convenience. If I had infinite time I might pursue it, but what time I already burned on it wasn't fruitful. The quick spell system would also benefit as I could put, say, little arrows in the spell corners to indicate where they're bound, but again, non-trivial.

S2) This would be a good quality of life improvement; I can probably work something out.



Edit: I figured out the issue with text boxes not accepting button input while incapacitated, deciding which of the many ways to fix it I'm going to go with, but it's as good as fixed.

The root of the problem is that when a text box opens it decides if it should take over input of the lead character's controller, and it was deciding not to if the character was burning, frostied, etc. because it thought the character wasn't human-controlled because those status effects clear the player controller number temporarily. A secondary problem was that those status effects keep clearing input, which the text boxes could otherwise still react to even when the text box doesn't take exclusive input control. A tertiary problem is those status effects don't fade while you're in a text box. I basically worked my way backwards through those issues.

Possible fixes include:
- Letting status effects fade while in a text box (seemed to have horrible animation side effects, scrapped this approach).
- Letting some / all input remain even while under those status effects (minor side effects, like entering a sprint as soon as you thaw, etc. and other combat code interferes, such as attack code eating the B button presses).
- Not clearing the controller number when afflicted (this one has minor side effects, like letting you switch characters while burning, etc. but also potentially fixes other code that doesn't check the "saved" controller number values).
- Modifying text box startup code to also check the "saved" controller number value.

I'm probably going with that final option as it doesn't appear to have any side effects, but the second-to-last may be useful info to keep tucked away; probably going to lead to improving other code that tries to check if a character is player / AI controlled.

[lexluthermiester]

lexluthermiester, I don't really disagree, but when I submit to RHDN that will likely be my last update. This project has already run on for probably double the time I originally planned to give it. By not officially submitting I can keep goading myself into continuing ("the download will break in a week, what can I manage before a week passes" vs "okay, download will last forever, I could do X, but I could also do it tomorrow" and then tomorrow never comes).

That makes sense. There is so much more that could be imagined with what you've been doing that it's easy to envision the project progressing for a year or more. It seems likely that anyone who's been following this knows that it's gone beyond the scope of what you originally had planned, and on behalf of everyone who has or will use this very cool project, Thank You! It's been a lot of fun to see how SOM has been reshaped and remolded. Good stuff! I'm betting Zhade's been watching with interest to see developments as they progress, and we can't offer gratitude without including him, so Zhade, Thank You as well! 

By the way, I have appreciated your encouragement. I didn't reply to your previous post(s) because I try to limit myself to only respond to things that require it (so like, if others discuss something in the thread and it's resolved before I read it, I don't add an unnecessary post just because, even if I'm happy with the outcome, etc.); probably makes it seem like I'm ignoring certain people when I'm not, but oh well.

YW! It did not come off that way at all. In fact, to me, it came off exactly as you just stated, like you were focusing on the project. No worries. 

[Mr X]

It would be nice if at some point there will be some modification to the level 9 weapon to make them stand out more besides just having the highest attack. Like what does it meant be an ultimate weapon, or is it simply because of a higher attack power?

Like there isn't much that can be done but one idea I had in mind is have have like one or two of them have faster charge time for special attacks. Like the Glove and Boomerang would be good picks for that, they are meant imo if you think about it.

Another one have another one's attack power be based on another stat.

Or have them with elemental attributes but no status infliction on the enemy.

Or raise the attack power of another weapon more but slower charge time.

But these may be very hard to do, elemental attributes may be the safest bet perhaps. Most monsters in mana fortress are weak to light or dark so it should probably center around those two elements mostly.

Or make it so some of these effects these weapons can obtain after they reach level 8:99 to make it more relevant. Make some charge attacks perform randomly once that level is reached without the need to charge, kind of like a luck thing as crit rate would be.

Just my general thoughts on the matter of level 9 weapons, would be nice to add even if something extra to them besides just higher attack power.

[G30FF]

Sorry if this has already been asked, or if this is just a dumb question, but I can't get the ZPS patcher to work, whether I run ZPS_Patcher.exe itself, or ZPS_Helper.bat. I already have to turn off Norton in order to get it to run, because it flags ZPS_Patcher.exe as untrusted and deletes the exe every time I try to run it. But no matter which of those I run, I can't get the tool to open.

EDIT: Windows Defender also flags ZPS_Patcher.exe as a virus and won't let it run.

[Queue]

Version 2019-07-28:
https://ufile.io/c62r5k3v

Changes:
- Added Magic\HP_Absorb_-_Reversible; ghosts also invert energy absorb (to match magic absorb behavior with Kethinov's "Reverse MP Absorb on Evil and Undead Monsters")
- Improved Quality_of_Life\CPUs_Dont_Block_Screen and Quality_of_Life\Walk_To_Edges_Of_Screen; minor optimizations and dealing with erroneous status afflicted player behavior
- Added warnings to Scroll_Hack and Centered_Camera descriptions; seriously, these aren't especially safe to use without Walk_To_Edges_Of_Screen
- Made a second pass on tidy map improvements to the Cannon Travel screen; it was one of the first I did and I've learned a lot about editing maps since then, so was able to clean it up without compromise
- Rewrote Bug_Fixes\Auto_Talk_Fix and Bug_Fixes\Permadeath_Fix to fit within vanilla ROM space
- Combat\Better_CPU_Allies now hides the Action Grid icon from the options ring menu
- Circular Forging now costs 50000 GP for a reset instead of 65535
- Miscellaneous\Day_Night_Cycle now includes simple water palette animation to try and disguise static coastline water
- Bug_Fixes\Dialog_Debuffs prevents getting stuck when afflicted by a status effect and a dialog box opens
- Bug_Fixes\Equipment_Trashing_Fix prevents memory corruption when trashing currently equipped equipment, probably (this one was complicated, but I think I got it)
- Bug_Fixes\No_Blats_To_Sell prevents lots of inventory issues involving corrupted items, also lets you sell consumable items when you have zero equipment



G30FF, I don't know what to tell you. Windows Defender doesn't flip out at me over any of the files. Submitting the executable to one of those sites that scans a file with a bunch of virus scanners also shows no bad results (other than the generic "this file isn't well known" warnings).

mkwong98, also a potential option. It all hinges on if I ever get to modifying Manual Blocking behavior.

Mr X, yeah, the level 9 weapons actually totally suck in the vanilla game. The level 9 axe is even objectively weaker than the level 8 axe. I made Circular_Forging so I can reset my weapons and go back to ones I actually like. I have a hard time committing to item stat changes; for some irrational reason I consider those more sacred than, say, combat mechanics or spell behavior (probably because I enjoy figuring out weird item mixes to use in games rather than the game prescribed "best" items when possible, and changing item stats diminishes that). On one hand, I do agree that they could use a reason to be worth using, on the other, I don't like the people who use the sword with the biggest number on it even if it's worse than the sword with not the biggest number on it, so I don't want to enable them. I'll think on it; maybe I can come up with something with suitable drawbacks where it makes them special, but someone may still want to use a "lesser" weapon instead.

lexluthermiester, it's easy to overlook just how important zhaDe's work has been for this project. His New Gameplay Improvement modifications to the game are super and a great foundation to have built on, but it's his patcher and patch format that really made all of this possible. While it's weird, has an atypical SNES 65816 assembly syntax (which I'd argue is superior to the standard), lots of odd constraints, clunky conditional support, no pre-processed math capability, and only a Windows .NET executable, it is amazingly powerful and enabling for me to develop in. It would have taken much longer, I can't even calculate how long, to make the same stuff without the ZPS format. It lets me create, modify and iterate very quickly and with no risk of losing work (like when I'm hammering out changes to the game directly in an SNES debugger). It also lets the end user pick which features they want on and off so I don't have to provide a pile of IPS files to suit the whims of people with terrible taste.

ShockwaveS08, I didn't get in the Fairie Walnut / Coconut item use protection yet; I know what it would take but didn't figure out how I wanted to implement it yet. No inverted ring rotation either yet. I did get in the Action Grid icon hiding, though it was trickier than I was expecting. If it had been the last icon in that ring menu, it'd have been easy, but it was the 5th of 7, so I had to first rearrange them so it was 7th, THEN I could lop it off the end, then I had to fix up the controller edit button recoloring code to account for the menu numbers changing. Hopefully there are no other side effects to that.

[G30FF]

It's only when I try to actually run the EXE that it flags it as a threat. If I scan it with Norton or Windows Defender, it shows up clean. For some reason, antiviruses only seem to treat it as a threat when I run it. It's unusual. It may very well be a false positive, lord knows it wouldn't be the first patching tool I've tested that was flagged by antivirus. Thanks for checking on it, I just wanted to share in case anyone else had an issue!

I told Windows Defender to ignore the threat, ran the patcher, and quick scanned my computer afterwards. It reports clean. It's probably a false positive, but I admit this isn't very scientific, and I can't be 100% positive about it being safe.

[Queue]

It's .NET-based, so you can rip it open with a utility such as https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy and read through its programming. It's not my place to claim it's safe; you should always rely on a third-party (e.g. not me, who has uploaded it) opinion when dealing with executable code from the internet, so I don't begrudge you being cautious. I am pretty sure the virus scanners are not a reliable third-party in this case.

[Chicken Knife]

Played with this for the first time tonight and I'm absolutely dumbfounded by how well all these new elements work together. Thanks for taking on this beast of a project and managing it so successfully.

The only thing that strikes me as a little odd or non-intuitive, especially after having just played a ton of Seiken Densetsu 3, is with the day / night cycle. Would it be too much to ask to have the inn keepers ask you whether you want to sleep until morning or evening?

**EDIT

I'm at the dwarven town and encountered something that could possibly be a bug. Attempted to purchase more than one power armlet accessory and the game is only allowing me to have a total of 1 in my inventory and / or equipped.

[G30FF]

Fair enough. On that subject, just want to say, excellent work so far! Getting all these patches to play nice with each other is no small feat! I'm looking forward to the final official release!

[ShockwaveS08]

I'm at the dwarven town and encountered something that could possibly be a bug. Attempted to purchase more than one power armlet accessory and the game is only allowing me to have a total of 1 in my inventory and / or equipped.

That's because Unique Equipment is enabled in the patch. You can run the ZPS Patcher and make sure it's unchecked before you make a fresh Turbo ROM; there's all sorts of other options to tailor the game to your playstyle.

[Chicken Knife]

Ah thanks for pointing out that option. I did spend 20 minutes reading the list before applying the patches and the sheer scope of it makes me unsurprised that I missed something. I'm a little curious why someone would want to limit accessories to one per but ultimately, who cares? I can turn it off.

I'm very excited to see what was done with magic--hopefully tonight I'll get a taste for that. Having to level up spells, particularly in the mid to late game, was always the thing I hated most about the original. Reminds me way too much of FF2.

[ShockwaveS08]

I seem to be running into way more framerate issues with the new version of Turbo. Running the game via the SNES9x app on my phone, and the constantly-dropped frames are making me wonder if it's either the emulator or the game itself is acting wonky. Booting up other games goes fine enough, everything's still smooth as silk.

I think the problem may be with the Dialog Debuffs code running 100% of the time, instead of only when a character is actively debuffed in an immobilizing manner.

Disregard all of this, as it turned out that my phone's ZArchiver app did a terrible .7z compression job, and that's what's causing the choppiness. For those of you out there that have emulators that accept this type of compressed archive, do it the right way and go with 7-Zip.
July 30, 2019, 10:49:29 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Here's a list of bugs I found while in the general area of Northtown, as well as a few more QOL suggestions.

B1: On your way to confront Dyluck in the Northeast Castle within the Empire, taking the upper-left door at the dungeon entrance will eventually lead to a balcony with three static chests stacked on top of each other, each one containing a Polearm Orb. Only when the third one is obtained do the chest(s) disappear.

B2: The tan eye-spawner within the Northeast Castle is incorrectly referred to as a "gizard Eye". This is the kind that spawns Beholders.

B3: After defeating the Northeast Castle Vampire and watching the cutscene, using the Magic Rope will not send you back to the dungeon entrance, but will instead place you just above the entrance to the balcony on the right, directly across from the triple-chest balcony on the left if you backtrack far enough.

B4: Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but whenever the Safety Pause is performed with the START button, any dialogue box that is onscreen at the time will have its background colors inverted. Happens without fail, regardless of scenario, timing, or window adjustments via the Display Menu.

B5: When adjusting the display window appearance in the Display Menu, and assuming you still have the default window background after all this time, navigate to the left three times with the D-Pad and observe the unsightly grid of light-green 2x2 pixels all across the example window.

B6: Opening the ring menu on the far-right side of the Northtown Inn's first-floor will sometimes cause a short vertical line of red/maroon-hued "garbage pixels" to appear outside the bounds of the area, within the black void. Doesn't happen 100% of the time, but it's quite noticeable when it shows up.

S1: Since I don't have a second controller to test multiplayer with, is there a possibility of assigning the role of co-op tester(s) to someone within this forum thread who has not only two controllers, but someone who is also willing to try and break this hack as much as humanly possible in the name of research, feature-testing, and bug-hunting?

S2: Given how both the Quick Magic menu is mapped to L, and the Manual Blocking to R, it would seem a bit daft to flip the controller upside-down within the Control Settings menu, leaving the rare "southpaw" player in a state of fumbling discomfort as they try to use their pinky-fingers to hit L and R. I suggest removing any mention of "controller-flipping", and/or disabling and hiding the feature outright whenever both Quick Magic and/or Manual Blocking are active, to avoid possible carpal tunnel.

S3: In regards to the Streamlined Turbo HUD, is it possible to display Primm's and Popoi's maximum MP, assuming there's enough VRAM to do so, so instead of reading "MP:07", it'll display "MP:07/22" as an example...unless this stat is capable of going into triple-digits. May need to relocate the MP text directly underneath the appropriate character's portrait on the HUD to conserve space if that is the case.

S4: Whenever in a non-hostile zone (i.e. no weapons drawn, no enemies), is there a way to temporarily hide the Targeting menu within the main circle menu, and then bring it back as soon as the player treads into hostile territory (which is the vast majority of land-coverage, truth be told)? If it can be done, it should also be hidden if there is only one character in the entire party, as there is no way to just put down the controller and let the Combat AI go on autopilot. Similarly, make it visible once more as long as you have 2 or 3 party members available, so you can still direct AI partners towards a high-priority target.

[Queue]

Chicken Knife, I intend to do the free inn on Mana Day thing from Trials of Mana as well as the time to sleep prompt. They take some not insignificant event script work though, and the end result is not critical, so it's not on my short list of stuff to get done at the moment.

Unique Equipment is partly because Secret of Mana has so few items, it makes you have to put a little more thought into who uses what rather than always buying 3 of whatever item is "best" at a given time. I'd suggest giving it a chance; lots of otherwise unused equipment (from the already tiny variety) ends up useful when you can't just dress everyone the same.

ShockwaveS08, glad the performance issue wasn't my fault. For the record, Dialog Debuffs can't hit performance; it's a trivial variable check added specifically to code that runs when doing event system stuff (opening text box, etc.), it simply isn't being executed most of the time (and when it does, it costs 4 cycles of CPU time). On the other hand, the changes I made to CPUs Don't Block Screen and Walk To Edges Of Screen are code that's running constantly, so I was worried for a sec until you clarified the issue (though the changes I made should make them more efficient, not less efficient).

B1) Not a bug, that's intended vanilla behavior if you miss weapon orbs; the chest will remain until you've caught up. Not really sure where you'd have missed those orbs, but that's why a weapon orb chest can pay out multiple times.

B2) Will have to check this; maybe a typo in Relocalized? Not really sure why there'd be an enemy name issue.

B3) The Magic Rope sends you to some saved last used door. I don't recall the rules it uses to save a door, but since those balconies lead to the same exterior as the main door, it's not surprising that they can affect the last saved door value (which then affects the Magic Rope). I may be able to work around this specific case but no promises.

B4) Not fixable. The hard pause literally stops all normal game code from running (this is part of what lets you take a save state that will work even if you load it against a drastically changed ROM), including the code that changes the UI palette mid-screen to flip between the text box and HUD colors.

B5) Low priority, but is something I'd like to fix eventually. I've not investigated how the Window Edit screen builds its palette but it's different than the text boxes outside of the Window Edit screen; thankfully stuff looks correct everywhere besides the Window Edit screen.

B6) Will investigate; stuff like this bugs me.

S1) I'd be happy if someone volunteered, but I'm not like, expecting it to be an assigned role?

S2) This is on the user. If they want to flip it they get to deal with the consequences. I've always been baffled that it was a configuration option, but whatever.

S3) It's been requested before. I've not fully scrutinized zhaDe's code that draws the mana display, but at first glance it did not look trivial to extend; if I ever dig into it I want to shove it where the charge gauge appears (not as simple as moving it as the charge gauge is generally drawing blanks that block out anything you try and put there). MP caps at 99.

S4) Not realistic to change. That menu is very hard coded, where order of icons, saved cursor position, the loop that populates that menu, etc. affect how each icon works. Stripping out the Action Grid button was non-trivial and it's not conditionally visible.

[Mr X]

I'll think on it; maybe I can come up with something with suitable drawbacks where it makes them special, but someone may still want to use a "lesser" weapon instead.

I agree, this should be the premise. Would definitely make more fun to use level 9 weapons and be more worthy than just being in named called "top weapons" or "ultimate weapons" while that being far from the truth, it always bothered me whenever I read that.

And now in Turbo they are even more useless than in vanilla, because the weapons like Excalibur for example actually do extra damage on certain enemies. Having them do something special but with a drawback seems like a good idea.

[Queue]

Am out of town for the weekend and what I've done to SoM over the past week is too hard to wrap up remotely to get finished before the last week's download expires, so anyone reading this, make sure to snag the old download within like 8 hours of this post, as there will be a dead period of a day or two before the next release.

I got side-tracked with something neat, but it took like 10 times as much time to do as I expected, so this next release will seem sparse on features, but what I did I sunk over 12(!) hours into this past week... which is nuts, jeez.

[ShockwaveS08]

B1: On very rare occasions, a rampaging AI Randi may cause the vanilla HUD's stamina percentage to flicker beneath his charge gauge for around 1-2 frames, showing as "100%" during that very brief timespan. Possible method of bug reproduction may include switching to either Primm or Popoi, and using the ring menu's Targeting commands to sic Randi on an enemy with an especially-large health pool.

S1: When airborne by proxy of Flammie, is there a way to display the name of the location/town/etc. you are currently hovering above, either in normal flight or overhead-mode? Had a very hard time reaching Mandala shortly after dropping off Truffle back in Matango. Best way to go about this would be to have the game check which coordinates that Flammie is flying above, and have some text appear at the bottom-center of the screen at various spots on the map, to serve as markers for major locations and landmarks.

S2: While we're on the subject of Flammie's capabilities, how feasible would it be to set a waypoint via the globe-view by pressing B to mark a waypoint, and Y to remove it? Is there also a way to increase the vertical scrolling speed of the globe-view when using Up and Down on the D-Pad? Its current implementation seems a bit cumbersome and unwieldy compared to actually flying Flammie around.

S3: Is there a way to display additional stats for armor, besides its base Defense rating, when either purchasing it at a shop, or browsing through your currently-held armors via the ring menu?

S4a: In regards to New Game+, the following things need to be removed from all three characters' inventories, and yet have any relevant stats kept in memory until the respective elements are acquired once again through natural story progression; all weapons, any and all Magic abilities (until you come into posession of the relevant spirits once more), Magic Rope and Wind Drum (so as not to sequence-break by going anywhere and everywhere from the start), the two spells that temporarily raise the Mana Sword to its full power (give the enemies a chance to fight back, at least), let me know if I missed anything.

S4b: Conversely, the things that do need to be kept are as follows; the three character's current names, levels, EXP, armors, Lucre total, and consumable items, as well as any rank progression they might have had in regards to weapons and spells.

Q1: Does vanilla SOM have internal code that allows a third player to join in, with the help of specialized SNES adapters that allow 3-4 players in other games, and if so, how difficult would it be to get it implemented in Turbo?

[FlamePurge]

Secret of Mana has 3 player by default, yeah. I don't see why Turbo would've deactivated it.

[lexluthermiester]

Q1: Does vanilla SOM have internal code that allows a third player to join in, with the help of specialized SNES adapters that allow 3-4 players in other games, and if so, how difficult would it be to get it implemented in Turbo?

With most SNES Emu's(whether on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android or BSD) 4 player mode is supported fully. All you need is a third USB x-input controller, properly mapped, and you're off & running. Player 3 should only need to press Select to jump in.

[Queue]

Version 2019-08-08:
https://ufile.io/l9h9dhcx

Changes:
- Slight tweak to Kethinov's "Magical Herb" hack to invalidate targeting dead players (I forgot the "+" symbol in the feature description)
- Quality_of_Life\Boy_Dislikes_Nuts; can no longer use Faerie Walnuts (or Coconuts) on the boy, and before anyone has magic can't use them at all
- Bug_Fixes\Initial_Distance; properly initializes some NPC data, primary result is you can no longer interact with an NPC from long range when they spawn
- Graphics\Polished_Weapons (Whips & Flails); fixes alignment issues on some Whip animations (for example, boy sprinting left / right) and adds a secondary animation set for Flails
- Tidy Map treatment for the final whip room in the Grand Palace; fixes some erroneous stained glass and shadows at the top of the room and provides some escape routes if you try and get stuck using whip post jumps

Technical Changes:
- Added ending credits text roll characters to the character table (it's just limited ascii)
- Minor Combat\Strong_And_Weak_Attacks code reorganization (and elsewhere in &(mods)\Combat)
- Small NOP optimizations here and there
- Fixed a dependency between DEBUG_MODE and Combat\FastNumbers
- Fixed detection of X button by DEBUG_MODE and added support for animation testing (via R+X; 0x000-0x0FF all PCs, 0x100+ boy, 0x200+ girl, etc.)



Polished Weapons (Whips & Flails) took me more than a week to change just a single weapon (though I'm happy with the result). I'm hoping that other weapons will take less time, as some of that was spent on learning and tooling, and on building the infrastructure for custom weapon animations. I had toyed with the Flails having different collision areas for one of their attacks but nothing I tried was both "fun" and side effect free (lots and lots of issues with whip posts).



ShockwaveS08
B1) I think this has to do with which phase in the 5-frame cycle the boy's code runs versus when the UI updates. Something I want to fix because it's sloppy, but will likely take some digging.

S1) Erm, while that would be neat, it would be a massive undertaking. I'll give a longer explanation later (because it's a fun thought experiment).

S2) The waypoint idea would be super useful... it's probably not possible but I've already had a couple thoughts pop into my head on stuff to check as long shots.

S2b) Changing the "globe" scrolling speed is probably not possible; in that view, rotation is fast because it's using SNES hardware graphics rotation to just spin what is already loaded, but scrolling requires rebuilding the entire "globe" image with each movement step. Because you're scrolling in an arbitrary direction, you can't jsut slide what data is there and add onto the end; you have to throw out the old and load a new image based on the new resulting view location.

S3) I'd love to, that's been on my long term to do list since I started on this project. Its absence after 8 months should make clear, very non-trivial to actually do.

S4) Please try what I have before making wild guesses as to what is and isn't necessary for New Game Plus; I've already accounted for most of what you bring up, and generally less destructively than you suggest.

Q1) Like vivify93 and lexluthermiester already brought up, Secret of Mana has always had three player capability. On a real SNES you use the multi-tap in the controller two port (SoM throws an error message if you try to use it in the controller one port); in most emulators you need to have multi-tap emulation enabled and controls defined for controllers 3 (and 1 and 2, obviously) though some emulators do not support 3+ controllers.

Edit:

S1+) Okay, so to add text to the world map (flight), you'd need to:
1) Find space in memory for a font to show text
2) Find a rendering layer that the text could be put on (or letterbox the bottom of the screen like Trials of Mana to switch rendering modes at the bottom of the screen to give access to a needed rendering layer)
3) Create some sort of coordinate system for retrieving place names
4) Populate a table based on that coordinate system with place names
5) Create place names for places not already named somewhere in game data
6) Find somewhere in code where it would be appropriate to do the place name lookup
7) Use the place name to build a tilemap in RAM
8) Find where in code it would be appropriate to update the tilemap in VRAM
9) Find where in code to handle mode switching if necessary

And that's off the top of my head; it would likely be worse than that.

The first issue, space for a font, could easily be a show stopper as I'm not sure how much if any is available. Then finding somewhere (not like, aesthetically, on screen, but literally, in hardware-defined image rendering placement) to put the text may not be realistic depending on what's already in use for showing the horizon, compass, ground and Flammie. Populating the data for locations could take a huge amount of time depending on how thorough you want to be; but even if you kept things minimal it would be no brief chore.

I also looked into some of the Northtown issues you brought up. I was able to reproduce the garbage graphics data on right screen edge indoors issue, but no clue what's causing that; I may poke at it some but there's a distinct chance it's not realistically fixable. My first two experiments with the Magic Rope in the Northtown Ruins issue were a bust (changing aspects of the doors in the hopes of changing when the rope point is set); I have another idea regarding "fixing" it, but it's a little more involved so will need to set some time aside to play with it but I'm pretty sure I have a solution.

[mkwong98]

S2b) Changing the "globe" scrolling speed is probably not possible; in that view, rotation is fast because it's using SNES hardware graphics rotation to just spin what is already loaded, but scrolling requires rebuilding the entire "globe" image with each movement step. Because you're scrolling in an arbitrary direction, you can't jsut slide what data is there and add onto the end; you have to throw out the old and load a new image based on the new resulting view location.

Recently SNES emulators (bsnes, mesen-s) have introduced the overclock function which may help.