[Archived] Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

[nesrocks]

Any randomness would be deterministic anyway, so it's a no problem.

[#]

I would just do it the old fashioned way and write a nice AI to play through the game. Feels like it would be more fun and probably even less work.

[nesrocks]

I think that's definitely more work than reproducing a TAS.

[FAST6191]

Any randomness would be deterministic anyway, so it's a no problem.

For a simple button replay?

I can't say I have pulled apart many NES game randomness generators (some sine tables for one I saw) but I am not fond of assuming such things. That said you might well be right and any any apparent randomness source is probably the result of actions unknown to the player. Though I am now going to wonder about uninitialised memory (even if it is just a seed used later in the game, xkcd because why not https://xkcd.com/221/ ) or maybe the microphone.

That said I assume anybody capable of writing a replay algo could force a start state for such things anyway (presumably a compatible one with the original play).

I would just do it the old fashioned way and write a nice AI to play through the game. Feels like it would be more fun and probably even less work.

I think that's definitely more work than reproducing a TAS.

I vote for making a machine learning type setup for this. Would be far more interesting than seeing another go at Mario or abstract game.

[nesrocks]

Emulator movies are based on determinism, so yeah, a replay button might not work (because the user may press it at any time). What I meant is a non-interactive ROM which plays back the input always at the same moment.

[redmagejoe]

https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/systems

Going to compile the known list of Final Fantasy II bugs/gripes into an easily readable list, since past posts were a bit rambly and got lost in the flow of this thread. Most of these should likely be incorporated into a single bug fix patch similar to those available for FF1, though single standalone patches would be appreciated if someone is willing to take a crack at fixing even just one thing. Something is better than nothing.

• Stats, Weapon Skills, and Spell Levels still being checked even when they are maxed. This leads to annoying end-of-battle message spam for maxed out weapons "leveling" any time you perform a single attack. More fundamentally though, this means that you can arbitrarily lose Strength, Intellect, or Stamina in a battle only because the game still checks to see if Spirit, Strength, or Intellect (respectively) increase when they are maxed. This entire routine should be skipped in the case of maxed out stats.
• Speaking of maxed out stats, there's no actual cap on HP or MP, meaning that HP can go above 9999 and MP above 999. This results in some buggy behavior, as the game attempts to display the values in the stat window using 3 figures, so you end up with hexadecimal values like 9D0 instead of 1030, and in combat it tries to display the full value, but only has 4 or 3 places so cuts off the most significant digit. There needs to be some check to ensure HP and MP do not raise above 9999 and 999 respectively.
• While testing and in the same vein of Weapon Skills, it appears that there's some sort of bug, underflow perhaps, pertaining to Weapon Skills once they reach 14. At 14 and 15, a single attack will instantly level them up if attacking a Rank 1 enemy formation, perhaps because of the Weapon Skill experience malus. A gripe not as frustrating as the above listed bug.
• Evasion and Magic Defense levels do not display as leveling up in your stat window after the battle which earned the level up. You must complete 1 more battle before the display is updated.
• Party-wide magic spells cast by enemies add to Firion's Spirit Up counter.
• Protect does not affect anyone but the caster, whether target-all'd or targeting an ally.
• Dispel does nothing. Unclear what it is supposed to do.
• Ultima is supposed to scale (in an unclear way) based on the skill levels of your other skills. Remakes of FF2 can likely be referenced to adjust this in a way that works.
• Aura 8 does not grant Undead protection, and Barrier 8 does not grant Ice protection.
• Wall can be exploited by casting it on monsters to ensure that Toad, Break, Death, and Warp work on them. Wall's effects should likely be checked before any routines handling animation or other effects take place.
• Healing items in combat are bound to casting on self, rather than allowing a target to be chosen. This renders Phoenix Down, Gold Needle, and Maiden's Kiss useless in combat.
• Sap only acts on the least significant byte rather than the whole of a target's MP.
• Healing Staff heals Undead as well as hurts them.
• Ripper appears to display incorrect damage values, which was fixed in remakes.
• The middle two characters, Guy and Maria, are biased by the enemy targetting algorithm, taking significantly more enemy focus than Firion or Character #4.
• That's it for bugs. A standalone title screen patch as seen in Neo Demiforce's translation would be nice to be used with newer translation projects, or even just the base JP game.
• More involved and potentially game-breaking if changed, but I find it maddening that key items, which already take up valuable inventory slots, seem to remain with you even when they should be consumed within the context of the story. There is no way to dispose of them either, and it makes inventory management more miserable as the game goes on. Why is the Goddess's Bell still in your inventory when it permanently opens Kashuan Keep after one use? Why is the Pass still in your inventory even after its similar single use access? Why is Egil's Torch still in your inventory after acquiring Sunfire? Why are BOTH still in your inventory even after throwing them into the Dreadnought's core? Why are the previous three of the four mentioned items ALL STILL IN YOUR INVENTORY when the relevant plot point blows the fuck up? I'm in the Deist Cavern with a WyvernEgg, trying to hatch it, and I'll bet dollars to donuts even after it hatches and there is a living, breathing Wyvern in the game world, I'll still have that damned egg in my pockets.

[Rodimus Primal]

https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffii/systems

Going to compile the known list of Final Fantasy II bugs/gripes into an easily readable list, since past posts were a bit rambly and got lost in the flow of this thread. Most of these should likely be incorporated into a single bug fix patch similar to those available for FF1, though single standalone patches would be appreciated if someone is willing to take a crack at fixing even just one thing. Something is better than nothing.

• Stats, Weapon Skills, and Spell Levels still being checked even when they are maxed. This leads to annoying end-of-battle message spam for maxed out weapons "leveling" any time you perform a single attack. More fundamentally though, this means that you can arbitrarily lose Strength, Intellect, or Stamina in a battle only because the game still checks to see if Spirit, Strength, or Intellect (respectively) increase when they are maxed. This entire routine should be skipped in the case of maxed out stats.
• While testing and in the same vein of Weapon Skills, it appears that there's some sort of bug, underflow perhaps, pertaining to Weapon Skills once they reach 14. At 14 and 15, a single attack will instantly level them up if attacking a Rank 1 enemy formation, perhaps because of the Weapon Skill experience malus. A gripe not as frustrating as the above listed bug.
• Evasion and Magic Defense levels do not display as leveling up in your stat window after the battle which earned the level up. You must complete 1 more battle before the display is updated.
• Party-wide magic spells cast by enemies add to Firion's Spirit Up counter.
• Protect does not affect anyone but the caster, whether target-all'd or targeting an ally.
• Dispel does nothing. Unclear what it is supposed to do.
• Ultima is supposed to scale (in an unclear way) based on the skill levels of your other skills. Remakes of FF2 can likely be referenced to adjust this in a way that works.
• Aura 8 does not grant Undead protection, and Barrier 8 does not grant Ice protection.
• Wall can be exploited by casting it on monsters to ensure that Toad, Break, Death, and Warp work on them. Wall's effects should likely be checked before any routines handling animation or other effects take place.
• Healing items in combat are bound to casting on self, rather than allowing a target to be chosen. This renders Phoenix Down, Gold Needle, and Maiden's Kiss useless in combat.
• Sap only acts on the least significant byte rather than the whole of a target's MP.
• Healing Staff heals Undead as well as hurts them.
• Ripper appears to display incorrect damage values, which was fixed in remakes.
• The middle two characters, Guy and Maria, are biased by the enemy targetting algorithm, taking significantly more enemy focus than Firion or Character #4.
• That's it for bugs. A standalone title screen patch as seen in Neo Demiforce's translation would be nice to be used with newer translation projects, or even just the base JP game.
• More involved and potentially game-breaking if changed, but I find it maddening that key items, which already take up valuable inventory slots, seem to remain with you even when they should be consumed within the context of the story. There is no way to dispose of them either, and it makes inventory management more miserable as the game goes on. Why is the Goddess's Bell still in your inventory when it permanently opens Kashuan Keep after one use? Why is the Pass still in your inventory even after its similar single use access? Why is Egil's Torch still in your inventory after acquiring Sunfire? Why are BOTH still in your inventory even after throwing them into the Dreadnought's core? Why are the previous three of the four mentioned items ALL STILL IN YOUR INVENTORY when the relevant plot point blows the fuck up? I'm in the Deist Cavern with a WyvernEgg, trying to hatch it, and I'll bet dollars to donuts even after it hatches and there is a living, breathing Wyvern in the game world, I'll still have that damned egg in my pockets.

Fixing many of those bugs would be well worth the effort. I also think it would be neat if there was an NES version of Soul of Rebirth as a bonus quest. Sure, its not that necessary, but it would be cool nonetheless.

[jimstrom]

I agree, i recently replayed Final Fantasy II and though it has a lot of flaws, it's still a really good game. There is some hacks existing, but not a plain restored type of hack. I also like the Demiforce translation a bit better than chaosrush, but both are really good.

[Reinc]

Warsong (Mega Drive):
- add an option to disable combat animations.

[luna211]

Anybody wanna fix Taz: Escape From Mars? The physics are too fast and flawed, and the levels are littered with bombs and cheap traps everywhere. Makes the first game feel like a masterpiece compared to this carelessly rushed sequel. Just try and beat Mole World without taking a hit! 

[treos]

i don't really know why i bother checking for replies to my posts in this thread. usually i just come here to throw out random ideas that come to me. if they get picked up i may or may not see them on the front page news articles.

ah, well... got another one to toss out but this one's a bit more of a minor request.

might it be possible to change that one item in legend of dragoon (sorry, but i don't remember the items name right offhand...i think it had the word "god" in it?) that automatically performs combos for you so that it actually lets you get exp for the attacks instead of how it normally does the attack but doesn't count towards mastering the move and unlocking future combos for the character using it?

[CrispX]

Sensible Soccer: European Champions aka Sensible Soccer: International Edition (Mega Drive): Add a secound board with more 64 fake teams in game on all mods for clubs, custom clubs and national teams. 

If is possible to make UMK3 charathers this can be possible too. 

FIFA 96, 98 (Mega Drive): Any FIFA hacked rom already to edit all teams, name, players and logo colours? Or some tool to edit the hole game in?
I wish to play FIFA 96 with my custom teams.

Sensible Soccer (Master System): Need a Edit option to change and edit the hole teams.

[Codingkid01]

A hack of Alex Kidd in miracle world that gives it a Mario theme instead, considering the two games similarities and also because how much better the graphical capabilities of the master system are when compared to those of the nes.
I also think there should be a mod to kirbys adventure that turns it into a Yoshi game, replacing kirbys vacuum with Yoshis tounge but still keeping the copy abilities because it makes sense due to yoshi eating shells in Mario world to get powers.

[CrispX]

Altered Beast (Mega Drive): Trying to add the 2 missing missions are avaliable in the NES Version.  I know it's complicated, but we never know.

World Cup Italia '90 or Sega Soccer (Mega Drive): Make Club Teams and changing the map in to Logo square teams, change name players, teams, stats and colour kits. 

[PresidentLeever]

A hack of Alex Kidd in miracle world that gives it a Mario theme instead, considering the two games similarities and also because how much better the graphical capabilities of the master system are when compared to those of the nes.

There was a WIP visual hack like this a couple of years back made in KiddEd, it's on YT. The games aren't that similar though

[foiopaulo]

What about a hack of Final Fight on SNES, or even Arcade, that puts Streets of Rage characters on it?

[sshadow5001]

I was looking on the Cutting Room Floor for Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure.
https://tcrf.net/Dragon_Ball:_Advanced_Adventure

I was thinking that it'd be nice if there was a definitive version of the game using a mixture of the different regions of the game.

The Japanese version features additional music tracks that were removed in the EU and US versions of the game, of the EU and US versions the EU version is less censored and has less spelling mistakes aswell as Japanese Voice Acting, however the US version features English voice acting in places (Usually for Attacks and and Exclamations)

Using the EU version as a base and Adding the Japanese music and US Voice acting would probably be the simplest way to do this.

Just an idea.

[Dasha-Supa]

An improvement hack for the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game. Have the enemies drop heath power-ups. The enemies already drop weapon power-ups so it seems possible that they could also drop heath as well.

I feel that this would make the game more accessible to new players.

[acediez]

Mega Man X2: Fight Black Zero.

Make it the same boss fight as the fight against Zero you would get if you don't collect the Parts. So, instead of having the real Zero destroy the fake one in one shot and make you skip the entire boss fight, have him come at the end of the fight and deliver the final blow (or something like that).

It just seems counter intuitive to me to have you skip a cool boss fight for collecting all the items.

[FiZiX]

A hack to fix the misplaced pixel in the title screen logo for Super Mario World. Example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/53cny0/this_misplaced_pixel_in_the_super_mario_world_logo/