Seiken Densetsu 3 (aka Trials of Mana) Hacks Discussion

[soul_knight]

@soul_knight

Pff.  If you want action rpg, then you really should try Front Mission Gun Hazard.  It's sort of like Castlevania SOTN, since you can explore all the maps (as long as you "unlock" those maps), and you buy/sell/equip multiple parts.  And obviously, you level up as you kill more enemies (and you can grind for more exp if you want).  It's probably the first action rpg metroidvania that uses level up system, even before SOTN.

And yes, it's insanely good.  I'm sure others can tell you how good it is.

I thought Front Mission was a strategy RPG.  I guess gun hazard was a spin off or something.  Based on what I can see on youtube, it seems like Cybernator and Metal Warrior.  Not sure how RPG mechanic works here, but I know I greatly enjoyed both Cybernator and Metal Warrior.  I shall try this game first.
January 09, 2022, 12:51:30 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
You should have said that there's a translation for Gun Hazard.  I was gonna ditch this, because it was in Japanese, then I remembered that there might be a translation, so I searched, and there it is!

In any case, thanks.  And thank you all for your suggestions.  I see that they're all for SNES, but I'd appreciate it if you can recommend some NDS games too.

[hmsong]

In any case, thanks.  And thank you all for your suggestions.  I see that they're all for SNES, but I'd appreciate it if you can recommend some NDS games too.

Well, there's the obvious KHs and Zeldas and Castlevanias, but others include Okamiden, Dragon Quest Rocket Slime (yes, this is a very fun action adventure), and Maple Story (it's a Korean metroidvania with level ups and equipment management, and there's an Eng translation -- I haven't tried the translation, because I'm fluent in Korean).

A side note:  this isn't action adventure nor action rpg, but it's my personal fav NDS game -- Custom Robo Arena.  It's a fighting game, sort of, but it is so so damn good.  If you're gonna play NDS, I suggest you to try that.

[soul_knight]

Well, there's the obvious KHs and Zeldas and Castlevanias, but others include Okamiden, Dragon Quest Rocket Slime (yes, this is a very fun action adventure), and Maple Story (it's a Korean metroidvania with level ups and equipment management, and there's an Eng translation -- I haven't tried the translation, because I'm fluent in Korean).

A side note:  this isn't action adventure nor action rpg, but it's my personal fav NDS game -- Custom Robo Arena.  It's a fighting game, sort of, but it is so so damn good.  If you're gonna play NDS, I suggest you to try that.

I played all of those.  CRA was great indeed.  I played everything you listed, except for Maple Story.  I'm pretty sure Maple Story is a phone game, but I guess NDS released something there too.

[hmsong]

@praetarius5018

So, did you settle on the mechanics of aggro meter and its related subject?

[praetarius5018]

Not yet, no.

[Dzumeister]

Are there any plans on bringing the bugfixes patch to the Trials of Mana English version?

[praetarius5018]

The chance of that happening is right about 0 or less.

[soul_knight]

@praetarius5018

Hey.  Recently, I came across this post in gamefaqs regarding the topic, "My least favorite area...":

...would have to be the Ghost Ship.

The reason for this is a severe pet peeve I have with allowing party members to drift apart in Exp counts. In any game that has a party that can level, if there is any reasonable way to get their levels to be even and keep them that way I always try anything I can to do so. In Final Fantasy 1 that meant that a single character death (or petrification) just prior to winning a fight could cost me large chunk of gameplay if I had not saved recently.

SD3 is one of these games, while not ever starting out at the same level, it is relatively easy to even out the three characters shortly after getting the 3rd one. (There are a few decent places for mono-character grinding near Maia)

Of course then you hit the Ghost Ship and it forces you to ditch one character for at the very minimum the boss fight (if you avoid literally every enemy until then). And this really irritates my pet peeve.

Of course this game actually has a much easier and more frustrating way of breaking party exp equilibrium... Any status that incapacitates one of your characters has the same effect on exp as being dead. If a monster dies while a character is asleep, snowman, petrified, etc, they receive no exp for it with the single exception of the victory kill. I have actually noticed (and I'm sure I am not the first) that no matter the condition, characters will always receive the exp for the last monster (or group) that was defeated that causes the victory to display, since at that point all status effects are wiped just as the exp is being portioned out.

That victory effect meant, at least for my balancing the party's exp totals to all be the same that my best farming places where in screens that had multiple groups of enemies and ideally one loner that can easily be left behind to skip the victory dialog from ever showing.

That actually happens when fighting Gildervine, as sleeping characters don't get exp either.

And that got me thinking.  Could you somehow make it so that there's some sort of auto-exp balancing mechanism?  Similar to your exp balance when you're underleveled, could you make it so that the party members who are below the top exp character get some extra exp?  Well, maybe not exp, but those who are below the top leveled character? (+100% exp sounds good).  That way, it'll auto-balance the below-level party members, eventually.  This would help in all cases mentioned above.  I thought this is an interesting idea.

[Mr X]

@praetarius5018

Hey.  Recently, I came across this post in gamefaqs regarding the topic, "My least favorite area...":

That actually happens when fighting Gildervine, as sleeping characters don't get exp either.

And that got me thinking.  Could you somehow make it so that there's some sort of auto-exp balancing mechanism?  Similar to your exp balance when you're underleveled, could you make it so that the party members who are below the top exp character get some extra exp?  Well, maybe not exp, but those who are below the top leveled character? (+100% exp sounds good).  That way, it'll auto-balance the below-level party members, eventually.  This would help in all cases mentioned above.  I thought this is an interesting idea.

I always skip the enemies in ghost ship and go straight for the boss after character gets split

As for sleep status didn't know characters don't gain experience when inflicted with that status. 
Doesn't seem like such a noticeable difference there when I never noticed it.

[Messianic]

So it seems like no fixed version with the counters or Afro or whatever is being made?

[soul_knight]

@hmsong

It seems that your No Skill Counter is doing something weird, like making the bosses not use their hp threshold attacks (ex: Black Rabite's spell combo).  You might want to look into that.

[hmsong]

@hmsong

It seems that your No Skill Counter is doing something weird, like making the bosses not use their hp threshold attacks (ex: Black Rabite's spell combo).  You might want to look into that.

Dang it.  Sigh.  Thanks, I'll take a look.  Guess I'll have to use the old version's No Skill Counter.  Having said that, No Skill Counter won't work if it's used with current version's bugfix.  At least, not what I can tell.

[hmsong]

Okay, multiple of my patches have been updated (some were updated in January though).

[soul_knight]

Okay, you made goblin/poron's dangerous attacks WAY too weak.  What the heck.  I get why you did that, but I think you went overboard.  They need to be a bit stronger.

[hmsong]

Okay, you made goblin/poron's dangerous attacks WAY too weak.  What the heck.  I get why you did that, but I think you went overboard.  They need to be a bit stronger.

What the heck are you talking about?  You think 30~40 damage when you only have ~100 HP is too little?  That is, assuming you're Lv5, and you don't have Carlie to heal you (so you're limited by Round Drop).  Yes yes, I know you can just rush through the enemies, but I tried to create things, so that beginners would have a good time for the combat (and not so damn afraid to engage in combat in fear of getting killed with HP threshold move).  Porons throwing around Dart as soon as you see him was esp bad.

[soul_knight]

What the heck are you talking about?  You think 30~40 damage when you only have ~100 HP is too little?  That is, assuming you're Lv5, and you don't have Carlie to heal you (so you're limited by Round Drop).  Yes yes, I know you can just rush through the enemies, but I tried to create things, so that beginners would have a good time for the combat (and not so damn afraid to engage in combat in fear of getting killed with HP threshold move).  Porons throwing around Dart as soon as you see him was esp bad.

At Lv5, even Carlie will have 111 HP.  And Poron's Dart is doing ~28 damage, which is nothing by that point.  And that's before you raise VIT.

[zarkon]

I wonder if someone who has hacked the collection release rom of "Trials of Mana" could settle a question I've had for a while.

When the collection was released in the west, it was said by the producer that it was switch exclusive because Nintendo had done square a favour by giving them the source.  But that never made sense to me as you only need to dump the roms from the cartridges.

The only thing that could possibly make sense of their statement is that even though the collection came out in Japan two years earlier, they were targeting a western release even then, as the source would only be useful for localisation of Seiken Densetsu 3.

I was told by a romhacker once that it would be fairly easy to tell if M2 had access to the source when inserting the western text or if they had to hack the rom to do so - if it is easy, can someone tell me whether M2 had access to the source?

[hmsong]

At Lv5, even Carlie will have 111 HP.  And Poron's Dart is doing ~28 damage, which is nothing by that point.  And that's before you raise VIT.

Okay, I'll raise Poron's Dart damage a bit.

Edit:  Done.  Waiting for the approval.  And updated Better Starting Stat and More Evade too.


@zarkon

No idea.  I don't even know what M2 is.  Having said that, if you're looking for the official Trials of Mana, then it's pretty easy to find.

[lexluthermiester]

Okay, I'll raise Poron's Dart damage a bit.

Edit:  Done.  Waiting for the approval.  And updated Better Starting Stat and More Evade too.

Done, new patches are live.

[zarkon]

@zarkon

No idea.  I don't even know what M2 is.  Having said that, if you're looking for the official Trials of Mana, then it's pretty easy to find.

No worries.

M2 are the company that Square hired to release the Collection of Mana trilogy - They are very skilled in both emulation and romhacking, so even if there was no source code they would have had the capability to hack the game and insert the translation that way.  I was just curious if they had to do so or if Square really got the sourcecode from Nintendo per the official story