Project: FF7 NES Upgrade

[Dr. Mario]

Actually he should be stiffer, that was the problem with the first one. Play the PSX game, He just stands like that. I was using gameplay videos for reference on him this time around.


Also here's the guard scorpion, Air Buster, MP, and Proto Machine Gun. If someone wants to do me a huge favor, play through the game and take screenshots of all the boss fights so I can get a size reference.

[Vanya]

Actually he should be stiffer, that was the problem with the first one. Play the PSX game, He just stands like that. I was using gameplay videos for reference on him this time around.

No reason not to make improvements. I think you should give yourself a little more artistic license. Be accurate sure, but make changes where you think they work or make sense. ^_^

I see what you mean about the stance, but you should definitely curve the blade. The way it is looks unnatural to the point that one would have trouble launching an attack from that position. I know because I tried that stance and grip with my boken.

Nice work on those new sprites. I especially like the Guard Scorpion. I think you should try more of these 3 color designs. ^_^

I'm going to see if I can dig up any boss illustrations for you to work with too. ^_^

I'll be working on some new sprites starting tomorrow as well. I think I'll begin with some character sprites.

BTW, are you going to be working on enemy sprites too or just the bosses?

[Dr. Mario]

MP and Proto Machinegun are both regular enemies. MPs are just more like "event" enemies, where you fight them after triggering an event. I might be working mostly on regular enemies as of right now. I'm taking a pass on Reno, someone else can do him.

[Vanya]

Sounds cool. I want to try my hand at some of these myself. ^_^

Updated first post.

[Withope]

Hello,

I've been following this project for the past week, and I am interested in remaking the songs from FFVII into 8-bit style. Yes, I'm aware that some instruments will be missing, but I feel some FFVII songs (at least melodies) would make the experience all the more enjoyable.

[Vanya]

Excellent! With the addition of Withope this project will be truly memorable. ^_^

[Nerd42]

Hey if there are any enemies in FF7 that were also in any of the old NES games, just reuse the graphics from the old NES games. Otherwise, sure it'd be cool to replace graphics

Withope, I've heard that getting custom songs into an exsiting closed-source rom can be really really hard ... but that was SNES .... I dunno if NES sound is different

heck by the time this is all said and done you guys will probably have completely disassembled and documented the thing.

[Withope]

I think the idea is making new 8-bit graphics based off of the FFVII PS release.

Well, about the only thing I know how to do is arrange these pieces of music, and give the programmers-for this project-the NSF files.

[108 Stars]

Nice work overall, although I see a serious problem with safer Sephiroth; the battles are strictly sideview, yet you have redrawn it right from the front view perspective of that battle in the PS1 game. It will look akward if the enemy does not look at the party, but stares at the player.^^

[Lindblum]

Astos, Kraken, Lich, Beelzebub, Malboro, Iron Giant, Planktae, and Scylla didn't have to look at the party. Maybe they thought they were too good to make eye contact with the enemy, or just wanted to break the 4th wall.

If anyone is more motivated to do the music than I, the music RAM starts around $6E00.
$6E54 Square1 Note (??-3F)
$6E55 Square2 Note (??-3F)
$6E56 Triangle (?) Note
$6E57 Noise (?) Note
This will help you use the debugger to find where the notes from each stream are loaded from.  I think $A2FB LDA's Square1 notes.
15, 1B, 27, 33, 3F are all for C notes, so you can figure out your scales from there.
I keep forgetting there are 2 battle themes; the random battle theme (FF2j battle theme), and the boss/scripted battle theme (FF3j boss theme (makes me think of dancing clowns somewhy)).

Edit: I haven't been able to rip a working NSF from the ROM.

[Vanya]

Thanks for that info, Lindblum! That will make things much easier.

[Withope]

If anyone is more motivated to do the music than I, the music RAM starts around $6E00.
$6E54 Square1 Note (??-3F)
$6E55 Square2 Note (??-3F)
$6E56 Triangle (?) Note
$6E57 Noise (?) Note
This will help you use the debugger to find where the notes from each stream are loaded from.  I think $A2FB LDA's Square1 notes.
15, 1B, 27, 33, 3F are all for C notes, so you can figure out your scales from there.
I keep forgetting there are 2 battle themes; the random battle theme (FF2j battle theme), and the boss/scripted battle theme (FF3j boss theme (makes me think of dancing clowns somewhy)).

Edit: I haven't been able to rip a working NSF from the ROM.

Admittedly I hardly know enough about programming ROMs for NES. I assumed I could merely arrange any piece from FFVII in 8-bit style in FamiTracker, export an NSF of such piece, send it your way, and everything would be alright.  Is this still a possibility?

[Lindblum]

Admittedly I hardly know enough about programming ROMs for NES. I assumed I could merely arrange any piece from FFVII in 8-bit style in FamiTracker, export an NSF of such piece, send it your way, and everything would be alright.  Is this still a possibility?

I already have FF7 MIDI's, and can transcribe the note sequences to byte values, but that's far from being enough to insert custom music.  SliverX is probably the guy who best understands NES music hacking.  So far I can only find where to find a track sequence in RAM and ROM.  I don't know how they're addressed, synchronized, or how the control bytes work.  I'd also like to know how and where songs are indexed, so that we can tell events to point to new songs.  It's shameful they didn't even implement the chocobo music. 
Just a few months ago I knew zilch about using the FCEUX debugger.  Now it's the best way I can figure out how to figure things out. 
I can give you a little demonstration of what the music looks like.  Open the ROM and look at 0x1C242-0x1C2B2. This is the Boss Music Square1 Track.  You'll hear it in the 1st fight of the game (2 soldiers).  It starts out:

Code Select Expand


6B 6C 68 65 64 65 68 6C 6F 6E 6A 6D 0C 6C 06 68 C9
G# A  F  D  C# D  F  A  C  B  G  A# A  A  D# F  F#

Brandish your favorite instrument and jam it out.  You can throw your own notes into there and become a step closer to being a 'music hacker'.

[Vanya]

Update:

Added pics of some of the enemies to the first post. This should help spriters create new enemy graphics.

[Azkadellia]

Vanya: The link for the ninja leads to the Witch and Nitemare image.

[Vanya]

Vanya: The link for the ninja leads to the Witch and Nitemare image.

Fixed. ^_^

[108 Stars]

Astos, Kraken, Lich, Beelzebub, Malboro, Iron Giant, Planktae, and Scylla didn't have to look at the party. Maybe they thought they were too good to make eye contact with the enemy, or just wanted to break the 4th wall.

Sorry, I did not mean any offense or to bash someone´s work; it was meant as constructive critic.
As for the fiends you mentioned, at least they have all been turned a bit in the remakes, so they are not quite as front-viewed as before, they turned around just a bit so that they can see the party now too^^

[Thanatos-Zero]

Greetings.
One of your team on Board2 asked me to do some 8-bit sprites for you, so ask me wich ones I should do.
Also don´t forget to tell me how big they should be. Besides of monster sprites I can do for you tiles and such. Here a little example of what I can do.


Also here a nice suggestion for the overworld music ( not mine).
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/13435

One thing about the Safer Sephiroth sprite. His angle must be turned, so he faces the protagonists. I will redo him for you, if you don´t mind.

[Dr. Mario]

One thing about the Safer Sephiroth sprite. His angle must be turned, so he faces the protagonists. I will redo him for you, if you don´t mind.

I do.

[Vanya]

Well right now we don't have a 'team' set in stone or anything like that. Mostly this is all volunteer work.
I guess since I started this thing I should organize some of the effort. These are the contributors so far:

Myself - Organizer, general support.
Lindblum - Advisor. (Has given us some great info on the game so far, Thanks!)
Dr. Mario - Monster/Boss & portrait spriter.
Darkdata - Data support & tile spriter.
Withope - Music.

I'll contact everyone via PM to see where we all stand on this loose collaboration.
You too, Thanatos.

I'll add a quick update to the front post once I've solidified the team.

Everyone, thanks for your contributions so far! I'm sure we can make this into a really great hack! ^_^