Final Fantasy IV: Born of a Dragon

[MGE]

I know this is an old thread, but like others, this hack also flew under my radar, but it's well worth the try. The difficulty balance is pretty good, and each level up or equipment change gives just enough oomph to feel significant. If the author is still around, any updates in the last few months?

I'd love for the revamped equipment screen patch to work with this hack, but so far it causes a hard crash at startup

https://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&action=images&id=4378&imageid=3&orig=0

Hey, yep I'm still around.   

I've just become super busy with real life (got married, had a kid, bought a house).

This project is not dead.  In fact, you may have already guessed that since I'm reading my messages here, I'm going to finally finish it up soon.  I've got a free weekend in a few weeks, I'll try to have it done before Spring 2020.  I have a loooooong "to do" list for this hack, which I'll post shortly, and even the to-do list isn't done.



Incidentally, this is the latest version of Born of a Dragon:

http://s000.tinyupload.com/download.php?file_id=85896753076973721270&t=8589675307697372127009464

[Celice]

Thanks for sharing the latest version, and congrats on all the big life events!

I just finished the Tower of Zot and I'm still having a blast with the game. Honestly this might be the best version of FFIV I've tried, and there's a lot of versions out there lol. The difficulty seems to have dropped off a little once I hit Troia, but that could be because I ransacked Eblan and got the Moonbeam and Earth weapons.

I love how many items are now useful as their own usable spells. I think Moonbeam and Earth might be a little too overpowered for now (I've been spamming them basically non-stop without consequence). Maybe some enemies need more magic-based counters to shut down that tactic from being used every battle?

It's been harsh with both Rosa and Tellah being primary spell healers and having such low Agility. Seems to take forever for their turns to come up, even after casting Slow on the enemy or boss. Potions are still a full-heal for me so it's not the worst thing to deal with but it can make squeezing in some tactical buffs or debuffs pretty difficult early in the battle.

Overall though I'm super happy with your work and ideas of balance so far.

[MGE]

I know this is an old thread, but like others, this hack also flew under my radar, but it's well worth the try. The difficulty balance is pretty good, and each level up or equipment change gives just enough oomph to feel significant. If the author is still around, any updates in the last few months?

I'd love for the revamped equipment screen patch to work with this hack, but so far it causes a hard crash at startup

https://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&action=images&id=4378&imageid=3&orig=0

Well, I just randomly fired up BOAD to start working on it during Spring Break, and it appears this works.

(I believe I did the noHeader option).

Cheers!  This is a HUGE boon to this mod, and really motivates me to get going on this again.

*edit*

Well, bummer...  this appears to work, but doesn't play nice with the other mods (the one that uses 'Cache' and allows for Big Chocobo access anywhere).  I will try to get in touch with the developers of these and see if we can get them both working simultaneously.

[jrelmore]

Loving the mod so far. I'm a huge FF4 fan and have really enjoyed playing all of the various mods over the years. I wonder if the hacking community will ever be able to start modding other versions of the games - such as the complete collection edition or GBA version. Would be nice to have similar troupes of mods for those. Anyway, great work.

Also, I second the wish for the equipment screen mod could be implemented, but I fully understand if it cannot. Out of curiosity, when you attempted to patch the game with that mod were you still able to use the fat chocoholic with carrots or whistles? Was thinking of patching over your hack and using a cheat to get infinite whistles. It's not exactly the same as the cache, but may be a decent substitute.

[tacticalcraptical]

Hello,

I just found this thread and this mod is very interesting to me but the tinyupload links don't seem to work anymore MGE (or anyone else on the thread) have you got a link to the latest version of the mod?

Thanks!

[abw]

Hmm, yeah, tinyupload seems to be a little bit dead. I've uploaded a copy of v0.98 which I think was the latest version: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1Frelwpwf8lpZgW9HASFMUnEm1F4Q01kP

[MGE]

So, I just got a notification that someone replied to this thread.  Version 120 is actually the most up to date (though it may have the Kary bug still present; still need to fix that...).

Tinyurl is dead.  I'm not sure how to host the file anymore.  I think I may start working on this again and finally finish it completely.  I'll let you guys know.

Do you think it's adequate enough to start an official upload to Romhacking.net?  It's beatable, sort of...  I think lol.  There are other less complete hacks up, so I might just do that so I don't have to host it in random places anymore.

[abw]

So, I just got a notification that someone replied to this thread.

Yeah, one of the anti-spammer mitigations here is that each member's first few posts need to be manually approved and don't trigger automatic reply notifications. It's not the greatest behaviour for legitimate new members, but based on the damage I've seen spambots cause elsewhere, I'd say it probably avoids/solves a lot more problems than it causes.

Do you think it's adequate enough to start an official upload to Romhacking.net?  It's beatable, sort of...  I think lol.  There are other less complete hacks up, so I might just do that so I don't have to host it in random places anymore.

Having seen the ending myself, I can confirm that the game is definitely beatable . Uploading the latest version here sounds like a plan to me!

[tacticalcraptical]

Thank you so much abw! I really appreciate it!

MGE, glad to see your considering submitting it.  I will try to play the version awd linked (or a newer version if you'd like to send it) and let you know what I think if you'd like.

[jrelmore]

MGE, what I can say if you made an excellent mod. While I have played many FFIV other mods to explore their interesting new additions (and will continue to do so as a FF4 superfan), the gameplay modifications you developed led to the most fun FFIV playthrough I've had in years. I've played multiple iterations of FFIV Ultima (which I also greatly enjoy) as well as several other mods over the past 2-3 years, and thus went into your mod dreading replaying the first few hours yet again. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how your mod really made me think strategically about battles. Each section, including those I typically dislike, felt fresh and new.

So, once you post the mod in whatever form you are happy with, I'll be putting up a positive review

[MGE]

Ok! 

I finally got around to submitted the latest version.  No doubt, there are bugs, and a bunch of new hack stuff that was hastily applied a year or two ago are still in, which may result in bugs down the line.

Oddly, I am a computer engineer in real life, and I'd love to dive into disassembling some SNES stuff, but I just never got around to it and deciphering these opcodes looks like torture...  I should really do my own hacking instead of being lazy.

Anyways, all credit goes to everyone in this thread for the continued support and technical expertise.  I tried to mention as many of you in the submission as I could.

If I get some free time this Summer, I'd love to wrap up all the loose ends, replay this, tweak it a bit and get a really solid final product, but we'll see.

Anyway, thanks again for all the help everyone.  (hopefully the submission appears soon... hehe)

[computerghoul]

I'm not sure if there's anywhere else devoted to discussion of this romhack, but I've been having a lot of fun with it. I'm up to the Tower of Bab-il revisit and I've honestly been proselytizing, I really enjoy the tight balance that's been implemented.

I'm really interested in any plans you have for tweaking it. I think the first thing I'd ask about is the equipment screen patch I've seen in other hacks, there's so many stats and racial bonus decisions to make.

[Ahmed]

Where can I find life3 and miracle? And what is the use of crystal shards and zeio?