Mato Projects (mostly FF4/6 stuff)

[Grimoire LD]

When you step on this tile, it pops up a question box. The problem is that you can accidentally avoid it and never trigger it at all. I'd like to move the trigger tile down one to avoid this, but I'm having trouble. I know how to modify the trigger data itself, but it appears there's some other piece of data that tells the game "hey this is a trigger you just stepped on, look through the triggers list!".

It's hard to find clear documentation all in one place, so I'm hoping someone will know how this works. I'm fairly certain it'd just be a one byte change... hopefully?

You are correct Mato. There is a property in the tile itself which checks whether it is triggerable or not. This too can be easily modified with FF4kster in the "edit Tilesets" section.

[Tomato]

Thanks, after digging around in bits and bytes I realized it was too much hassle to deal with so I just put an empty treasure chest in that one spot to avoid any possibility of accidentally avoiding the spot. A much simpler and safer solution 

[KingMike]

In the PSP and GBA versions there is an after game scenario after you defeat the emperor in the underworld or whatever. Then you play as all the characters that died fighting the empire against a "holy" version of the emperor. It's basically a bonus dungeon called "Soul of Rebirth".

I hadn't played the bonus content in either GBA game.
I just remember when FF1+2A was first announced and people were like "WTF is Phantom Train doing in this game? That announcement has to be an April Fools joke!" I'm guessing that was FF1's bonus dungeons which I don't think were meant to have logical connection to the game (I mean, the first one used FF3's intro dungeon for a couple of its maps, kind of a troll move at that point )

[Red Soul]

I hadn't played the bonus content in either GBA game.
I just remember when FF1+2A was first announced and people were like "WTF is Phantom Train doing in this game? That announcement has to be an April Fools joke!" I'm guessing that was FF1's bonus dungeons which I don't think were meant to have logical connection to the game (I mean, the first one used FF3's intro dungeon for a couple of its maps, kind of a troll move at that point )

You know, it always bothered me that FF3 (as in the NES game) never got the GBA treatment. I don't really like the 3D remakes (unless you are talking about FF6, which was at one point in the past FF3 on western territories?).

[Dark Phoenix]

There's a lot of stuff in the hack that made me think "whoa, that's clever how they used this thing from FFIV in this new way" so maybe that's why. Or maybe the person just really liked FFIV and/or hacking it. I think it'd be fun to re-create FF1 with the FF5 or FF6 engine, just as a small little hobby project, and I get the feeling the FF2 remake guy had a similar motivation.

I remember seeing a guy who was trying to do FF4 in FF6 using the FF6 hacker tools as well...

[Neon Streetlight]

You know, it always bothered me that FF3 (as in the NES game) never got the GBA treatment. I don't really like the 3D remakes (unless you are talking about FF6, which was at one point in the past FF3 on western territories?).

That has always bugged me too. The first 6 games have been remade multiple times in their original sprite-based 2D forms, and yet the only English localized versions of FF3 are the 3D remakes. The only good option we have is the Chaos Rush translation patch.

[Rudy]

I remember seeing a guy who was trying to do FF4 in FF6 using the FF6 hacker tools as well...

I wonder how that went. I always thought it would be cool (and maybe easier now that we have larger sprites from the remakes). But the deal breaker I always thought would be the battle system having 4 characters, might be a huge pain to add a fifth

[Vanya]

That has always bugged me too. The first 6 games have been remade multiple times in their original sprite-based 2D forms, and yet the only English localized versions of FF3 are the 3D remakes. The only good option we have is the Chaos Rush translation patch.

You can add me to that tally.
It's disappointing that it's the only left out.
As much as I love Chaos Rush's translation patch, I yearn for a 16-bit remake to go along with it.

[Neon Streetlight]

You can add me to that tally.
It's disappointing that it's the only left out.
As much as I love Chaos Rush's translation patch, I yearn for a 16-bit remake to go along with it.

Couldn't agree more. I've also never been a fan of the 3D remake's art style. The characters look like dolls to me. Hard to take the story seriously.

[odditude]

how about this? sorry for the lack of image, but ' '=bg, X=white, .=gray

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[Red Soul]

Couldn't agree more. I've also never been a fan of the 3D remake's art style. The characters look like dolls to me. Hard to take the story seriously.

Exactly. Their heads look like inflated balloons.
I suppose one way to go about it would be to borrow FF5's graphics and make a graphical replacement to be used in Mesen, but if a powerful enough editor existed for FF5 or FF5A, that would probably be the best bet of recreating the game.

[Tomato]

Okay, the translation is out: http://tomato.fobby.net/ffc2/

[Red Soul]

Wow, excellent news!
I'll be sure to give it a spin.
Thanks for your hard work.

[Vanya]

Awesome! I'm playing it this weekend for sure!

[Rudy]

Good job on the patch! Ver B really takes it to the next level!

[Grimoire LD]

Wonderful, this was one of my most anticipated games of the summer!

I will give a step-by-step analysis of what I think of the game as I go through it.

First off the starting presentation is already quite impressive, putting more effort (as in some actual dialogue) before starting the battle. It is curious to see that was made into an Auto-Battle.

Using Mysidia as the base of operations is quite an interesting idea, what a neat idea for a recontextualization of an area.

Minwu's sprite looks great, but something looks a little off on Hilda's sprite from the side. From the front she looks fine though. Guy's sprite looks incredibly regal! Not exactly befitting of his personality. Firion looks incredible, they did a great job with the space on him, much better than FFII:Origins, I would say. Maria looks like a recolored Rosa, which is fine.

How interesting to see that Leonora appears to be Minwu's protege. A nice touch!

...Keep track of how many items you've looted...? Huh?

Whoa! A mini-bio for each character on their status screen? I didn't even know we could do that!

Iron Arrow/Bow, hmm... no need to keep track of Ammo then? Well, that would be the same as FFII, now that I think on it.

Ah, so the top is the Tower of Prayer, below that is Fabul's Foyer, neat!

Kodzuka Knife...?

Oh, they added descriptions to all of their items! Awesome!

Ah, the game keeps track of the hidden treasure you find. That's a fun idea!

Looks as if Baron's Inn has remained more or less the same, except with a dancer as hostess.

So the Elder of Mysidia's sprite was used for Tabul, eh? Fair enough.

Oh! They completely redid the world map! You never told us about this Mato!

...Well, there's quite a bit of difficulty here at the start. First normal enemies, DiveEagles took down Firion like he was paper. Maria seems to be MVP here with Black Magic, White Magic, and summoning along with some pretty good accuracy.

Well I've grinded up to Level 5 for everyone. It didn't take that long and is somewhat true to the FFII experience, haha. It's neat to see that Maria learns Aero, a spell not in either FFII/IV proper.

Having learned Smoke Bomb at Level 5, I assume that Firion will have a spellbook similar to Edge.

Before I head off from Altair I'll pick up a Rod for Firion and move him to the backrow. His Broadsword is dealing rather poor damage.

Glad to see there are Chocobo Forests scattered throughout the world, instead of just in one place.

Of course, after I spend money on a Rod I find one in Gatrea, *Grumble, grumble...*

Well, I'm glad I saved before marching into Fynn, haha.

So the Town of Fynn is Baron, it makes sense.

The treasures in the towns look to be relatively unchanged, oddly enough.

"replenish arrows by choosing them..."? That looks to be a carryover from the base game.

Haha! I love the "Pint of No Return" joke.

Hmm, I can't say I like how the Bartender just vanishes, instead of doing... anything implying movement.

Scott as Baigan, haha!

If you get into battle with the guards, the music does not change. That's fine for the castle, but I'm not sure it works too well with the peaceful town theme. I would suggest adding in battle music there by using an event instruction.

I have to reiterate, they did a great job with these scaled down PSP portraits (I think Firion may be using a different render, but I'm not fully sure). Minwu looks to be as awesome as ever. However, again his joining event didn't even have him moving into the party, but again, just vanishing.

Curad and Araise? I thought Level 3 magic was -aga and Life2 was Arise?

I like the tip change of "You can catch a ship from Paloom. What, you have a hovercraft? You should take that to Salamand!" It's a nice touch.

Oh, the Battle Axe is two handed. You wrote a rather good message explaining that.

A nice hint that you might be able to get a Black Chocobo in the Paloom Chocobo Forest at some point. I guess that explains why Paloom is Troia then.

"Drink like a sink!"? That's an odd phrase, at least one I've never heard of.

The treasures in Not-Troia and Mythril have been substantially different, thankfully.

Ah so that's how Cid's Airship was set-up in this game, fair enough, though I expected him to be... Cid, and not a generic Officer sprite, an odd choice there, though that might be because Cid's sprite was replaced.

Haha! What are these weird people on the second floor of the Poft Inn? One seems to think they're Terra, Cloud, and Squall and the other is rehearsing the Opera.


Salamand is Kaipo, eh? Well, FFIV does lack any natural ice areas, so I guess this changes makes sense, talk about a complete recontextualization of events in this case though.

Power Ring for sale, hmm? I might have to pick that up if I can.

Mt. Ordeals in the desert, eh? Interesting...

Minwu's sprite in battle looks incredible, probably the best of the sprites so far.

Those Minimages caught me incredibly off-guard, thankfully Minwu is great and managed to silence them when I knew what I was up against.

Yang as Josef makes a good deal of sense.

Wha? I can't get into the hidden waterfall...? Oh! It's probably been repurposed to getting the snow-mobile...equivalent... in this version.

Incant must be Black and Ninja, neat.

Well! Octomamm came out of nowhere! That was a legitimate shock.

One thing which makes the battles a bit more difficult is lower HP thresholds. In the normal game it doesn't take long for any character to reach 100-150 HP, but in this it takes quite a while for any of them to break 100 HP (not counting Minwu or Guy) This makes each blow a bit more damaging overall.

The strategy was to Slow using Minwu, Chocobo Kick him several times with Maria, then Haste and Berserk Guy. Then I tried Aero and saw it was dealing 300 damage... I should have went with that, hehe.

I admit, after OctoMamm, I did not expect there to be a boss of this place. Looks like I was wrong.

The General+Soldiers wasn't exactly a challenge, but it was nice to see that their stats were buffed a bit. I enjoyed that I could use Sleep on them. It's always nice to see status being useful in a boss fight.

I picked up a Kenpo for Guy, who now has 4x attack, which is good. The main 3 are at Level 11 right now.

Hmm, I guess I'll pick up a Mythril Hammer and Bow for the party. That's about all I can afford.

And now Maria might be able to hit something... eventually, with her bow.

I think I will take a break there. The next step is to Bafsk and I have been playing for roughly two and a half hours. This is a lot of fun and is literally a whole new game! Thank you for your efforts Mato.

[Red Soul]

According to the readme, past a certain point, the game turns into the last parts of FF4.
What does that mean exactly? that FF4 tiles are used to reproduce the layout of FF2's Pandemonium?
or that said layout and area don't exist in any shape or form and instead what is present is the FF4
endgame as it always was?

[Goznog]

good job on the release, I do enjoy both FF2 and 4 quite a bit so this'll be a fun time!

I have noticed one error: when fleeing from battle and losing money, it's called "GP" like in the original US version. the patch is using "Gil" everywhere else.

[Tomato]

Basically, after Leon joins the party, a big hole opens up near the Jade Sea. Going down it takes you to the Underworld where almost all of the same things exist as FF4. And then once you're done there, you go to the moon, where almost all of the moon stuff is the same.

So, once Leon joins the party, the game suddenly stops feeling like FFII and mostly just like FFIV. There are still FFII story elements at the end of the game of course, but not too many.

[Red Soul]

I see. I guess it comes with the fact it is a remix rather than a fully fledged recreation.
Thanks again for your hard work on this patch.